


Between the Raven's Talons

by TheOne16th



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Blackmail, Conquest, Conspiracy, Demon Sex, Diplomacy, Drama, F/M, Group Sex, Masturbation, Multi, Politcal Maneauvering, Political Campaigns, Political Intrigue, Politics, Smut, Symbolic Smut, War, dark smut, new lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 21:50:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16689538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOne16th/pseuds/TheOne16th
Summary: Ladies, mistresses, matriarchs, and queens; to Jericho Swain, their hearts were as malleable as truth, and their bodies, as conquerable as nations.





	1. Chapter 1

  **A Vision Comes**

 Jericho Swain trudged up the stairs leading to the highest sanctum of the Immortal Bastion. Often a man would see his left hand retracted into the shade of his cloak, but alone and unaccompanied by Darius's legionnaires, he could afford privacy, so he let his left arm, the one clad in scarlet daemonic enigma, to uncloak him once had had arrived at the door of his room. It was the sanctum seated at the pinnacle of the Bastion, where the ravens roam, umbral lords to their firmament.

Swain had grand objectives, often hiding 'neath the quiet stares that foreign lords and Noxian stewards seldom took for lack of attention, yet his personal chamber had naught a semblance of them. Granite walls unadorned and floors unpolished, Swain paid these no attention. He had a place to set his footwear, a wardrobe, a balcony, a bed, a bookshelf, a study table, and a cage for his soon-to-be pet bird, all arranged in a circular space which was heavily under-furnished and under-decorated that the distance between his belongings were significant. But that was what he wanted. Only what he needed. Only what was practical. He was no Darkwill.

After slipping off his boots, his cloak, and his formal garb, he wore naught but a tunic and his belted leggings. All that he removed, were the impressions appropriate for his legions, stewards, and diplomats, none of them existing in this room. Here, he donned the mantle of a civilian, of a man at the brink of old age, with his ambitious youth raging against its dying light. But even that was a shell.

_I have been wearing these beneath all day,_  he thought, and not long, he removed his tunic, unbuckled his belt, and shrugged off his leggings, until he had but thin loincloth covering the barest of him. He pulled open a door of his wardrobe, and stowed away the civilian garments. A mirror was affixed to the opened wardrobe door, and as he unknotted his loincloth, there he caught a man in the middle of a routine, with his naked, battle-branded form exhausted from a day of internal politics, gatherings, diplomacy, and sporadic morsels of visions. Nigh-pallid was the dwindling radiance of his skin, unlike the emberous flesh of his left hand, like a part of him unrealized.

He remembered a time of bravado, where looking at his conditioned stature was a cause for a smile, and where seeing his female comrades bite their lips was a reason for esteem. But these days, he'd simply look away. He found that his words and thoughts did him more good than his body. Besides, he had long forsook his own image for the image of something greater: a nation risen above all; one that was determined to achieve domination at all costs.

He took his black sleeping robe, wore it, and closed the wardrobe doors. With bare feet, he walked to his balcony, jutting into the night sky, yet somehow still above all.

Yes, domination. Noxians need it. He was not exempt. And each had their own way of satiating that need. Darkwill had his debaucheries, Darius, his battles; and Draven, his executions. Many often wondered how Swain exacted this intrinsic need. Some say he found it in the success of a well-planned strategy; or in every Noxtoraa built by the war-masons; or in the status of being the de facto leader of the Trifarix, or in whatever else exaggeration the rumors prattled on. But among those, what he personally liked, was that the mere position of standing at this very balcony, atop all of Noxus, its people, and institutions, was what gave him his fill for domination.

Yet that was still wrong. However reserved, wise, and modest he may seem in such revered a tenure, Jericho was the most voracious of all Noxians, and he made no pretense of it on this balcony, of which he stood not to feel the gratification of status but to see the horizon which Noxus was destined to tame. His visions would lead them there. His visions were fate. They gave him secrets, and secrets were an absolute power, for both him and Noxus.

He leaned against the granite railings, cold against his palms. Noxus Prime was a field of winking vermillions rendering onward into endless night; braziers flaming, street-torches glowing, and candles embering. The wind moved the flowing silver of his hair before it traveled down into the bare spaces beneath his sleeping robes. Even in the night, he felt Noxus's restless spirit and saw all that it needed: stability, survival, power, and a glorious future. He saw all that it was and was not; all that it could and could not; and, all that it had and had not.

He saw everything, like a raven at his perch.

And there came one, a crimson star from the moon, first a blip, then a groove in the black sky. It carried with it new visions. Jericho had readied himself for it, having not spent time in his study first, for this raven required much of his hours this night, for it was not one sent to Noxus, but to the greater powers who had the potential to oppose it.

As it neared, flapping its ethereal wings, Swain let out his left hand. "Here." he said, and watched the crackling hell-sparks of its talons connect with his wrist. "What have you for me?"

The raven blinked all six of its eyes, cawed a line of incomprehensible whispers, and melted like yolk into his left arm. Swain closed his eyes. The energy which was a passive murmur within his hand roared into his head like a surge of fire. Into the lightless canvas of shut eyes, the energy manifested spaces, sounds, and people; a theatre with its scenes ripped from reality by his raven's talons, in lands far away.

A vision; long and intricate flashbacks of intelligence which the raven observed. Unlike the ravens he would send to Noxus that were always in close proximity, this particular raven's memories needed to be absorbed in one lengthy instance, for it had traveled far. Jericho liked to think of it as an entertaining trance.

Reflected upon its reddish eyes, there towered spires of perfect symmetry so high up they could not smell the fumes below.  _Piltover._  Swain thought. A city dubbed a beacon of progress and opportunity. But Swain knew better. Underneath the ever-rising metropolis, children maimed each other for scraps; lungs of infants turned black with the toxic Gray; and the fate of Zaunites were tied to three things: labor, experimentation, and an early death. It was only fitting for a nation that manufactured battle-gear in the way farms produced grain. It was a haven for arms dealing and war-profiteering, that the poorest of their people suffered to produce, while the richest of Runeterra enjoyed, not excluding Noxus.

It was general knowledge amongst his command: Piltover is a faux-meritocracy ruled by wealthy oligarchic families,  _clansmen_ , whose conflicts and influence are felt from the zenith of the spires to the pools of the Zaunite factories. Whatever power one has, was what one's wealth can afford, and wealth passed through blood was greater than wealth earned through sweat.

So Swain found this no surprise, that Piltovians outnumber Zaunites in ballrooms and thrones, while Zaunites outnumber Piltovians in assembly lines and cemeteries.

All those below toil for positions those above are born into, a feature of the aristocracy he had struggled to vanquish over Noxus's conscience.

_But a masquerade of dynasties among hopeful subjects._

The raven flew higher and higher the pristine Piltovian towers of commerce and education, and Swain was not at all surprised that his raven would search here. It flew, passing by the command hubs of airships, bridges of hextech, grand screens of Piltovian advertisements, throngs dressed in elegant garbs, and houses filled with Zaunite servants; details so redundant that Swain found this mundane.

Until blood splattered. A Zaunite and a Piltovian in formal attires were both dead, their spines split open beneath the massive gears of a clock tower. Their bodyguards shared their fate; a mess of weapons, augments, and organs across the floor. Their wounds were the likes of great-axes swung overhead.

A shadow glided. The raven followed and saw it fire hooks from its hip, allowing it to swing from wall to wall, building to building, and tower to tower. No gunfire nor augmented blasts followed it. No sirens rang nor fingers pointed. She left no witnesses as she left the district.

Jericho could not restrain a smile. All that he had seen was but an introduction to this all, and ravens were not sent for such things. They soared for secrets. And he was going to have hers, the most powerful woman in this nation.

_Camille of Clan Ferros_.

He remembered her, she was part of the visiting Piltovian Archminister's retinue. She did not have her blade augments at that time, but her words were articulate as they were sharp and succinct, and she was among the few who had caused him many a considerable pause before his next sentence. She presented a strong case on behalf of the Archminister whilst remaining amicable: Noxus was good for business.

But a Piltovian and a Zaunite organizing a movement for better working conditions was not. It was to expose the shortcomings of Piltovian factory owners, most of them clansmen, and demand them to reassess their policies and answer for alleged ethics breaches. It was  _not_ good for business. It was a threat to Piltovian power. That meant a balance had been upset, so, like clockwork, Camille realigned it, garnering favor for her clan every time she did so, hook by hook, target by target.

The raven had continued to follow her. Her role as a "designated enforcer" had the status of an open secret among the powerful, and though many did not know it, it was not valuable to Jericho. He knew there was more. His ravens had an instinct for it, and like worms in thick grass, they will find them.

And the raven uncovered what he needed, after Camille had temporarily replaced her augments with her realistic leg prosthetics to visit a certain relative: a little girl of her clan, whom she adored every day through expensive gifts, innocent activities, and harmless banter over cups of tea. To her, she spoke softly, with patience absent from most exchanges the raven followed, and she'd act as if a mother: teaching her to dress properly, to follow manners, and to read and write. When there was no need to kill or to negotiate, she was here, in this little girl's room.

The secrets were rarely obvious, but Jericho had learned to master comprehending them.

What if the girl knew Camille's role? He imagined the personal consequences for her, and the likelihood of her yielding to his demands without even needing to speak of politics. Like so many others, her weakness was a truth she could not bear to reveal. Fortunately, the raven was relentless in finding it.

Excitement rushed over him like wildfire. A feeling that lathered his skin, that forced his lips to curl, and his mouth to water.  _This_  was domination. He had all the knowledge, all the capabilities, all the  _strings_  to hold the Piltovian lady in place. He observed her haughty, condescending, and somewhat dismissive attitude through her raven's eyes, how she was known for her impatience and demand for perfection.

_What a pleasure it would be to put you in the most imperfect position, in a place where all your towers fall apart, and where all that you've shoved below penetrates the barriers and mingles with the pristinity you've so protected._

What he felt, it was lust. It was animalistic. It was irrational. It was youthful. This was Jericho's secret: a desire to dominate women in powerful positions by holding their most precious secrets hostage. It was the symbolic equivalent of causing a nation to totally submit without having to battle them, the greatest form of military victory. Indeed, the joy of seeing them bend over to receive him was equivalent to witnessing the bows of all a conquered nation's people.

His visions of a grand empire paralleled the demands of his body. Both depended on his power over vital information.

The vision of his raven was not yet over. He had it follow Camille into her quarters, a grand room where all was organized, save for the clothes she lazily tossed into her hamper for the machines to handle. He watched as she slid her silken stockings off her pale and tremendous, skull-crushing thighs. Though she was augmented, most of her bodily functions continued, including sweat, which coated her athletic litheness as she peeled off her combat suit until her supple breasts dropped down. Not long, the automatic showers washed her in a surge of warm water.

He had a compelling urge to reach down himself, and savor all he saw within these visions... To himself, his demonic hand was painless warmth, a stimulation of what was come, and he gripped its dormant fury over his shaft as he returned to the vision of her, and imagined that he was there, looking down upon the electric blue of her eyes while her wet, Piltovian lips took his girth rigorously, his hips grinding against her face, oiling her throat, bringing out her spit to ready his shaft for the tight cradle between her breasts where a percussive mingle of sweat, spit, and exotic perfumes against his groin would-

A knock on his door.

He flicked his hand away, tumbling his manhood back beneath his robe, and let out a disappointed breath to steam out of his nose.

"Jericho, I have the-" It was Darius, still in his armor, prepared for his legion's late-night drills. He cleared his throat. Having whipped straight by the abrupt entrance, Swain did not move, but his member did, flaccidly. He learned this well: when they suspect nothing, let them speak first. "I thought you would be getting ready to sleep at this time. Did I interrupt a vision?"

Jericho turned to him, each second pressuring him to relax his stiff— and steadily unstiffening— after-reaction as he faced his fellow trifar. "No, I," he cleared his throat, " _you_  did not come to interrupt anything." Darius appeared to be holding a scroll, and it took a moment's staring and awkward glancing at Darius's stoic countenance that Jericho readied his own composure and answered as the Grand General: "What's this?" he said, walking towards his fellow general.

"Scribal transcripts of the Archminister and his retinue's statements this evening." Darius said, taking a step further into Jericho's room, the door closing behind him. "I was going to deliver your copy personally."

Jericho rose a brow. "And why? Was there something you noticed during the discussions?"

"No. There was no one else who could be sent to your chambers at this time during your visions, so I decided I be the one to give it to you."

It was Darius's intuition, not martial prowess, in even the smallest matters that Swain found most useful to all trifars, even if their alliance had been fresh, so he nodded his head. Darius had defected from Darkwill's allegiance of his own accord. His initiative was precious beyond value, but not always convenient . "I appreciate that you've given it to me at the soonest time, Darius, but a little note, it would be safer for both you and me not to open my door and call out my name as I am having my visions." Then he looked away, "there is no telling what could have happened if you had entered at its climax."

"I understand." Darius's eyes floated down. "We should have such transcripts be done quicker, that these situations be avoided."

"Our archival processes are another matter. Darkwill left us with much to repair in his hedonistic wake, and our records are just one of many."

"And among those were the Piltovians unrequited trust. They forget that we are unlike Darkwill. Shows how little our politics matter to them."

"I disagree, Darius." Jericho said, and wondered how quickly he had gone from pleasuring himself to discussing politics. "They trust us  _more_  than Darkwill. We are a newly reformed nation with ambitions that stretch beyond oceans. It would be in their interests not to provoke war with us, for they are in a shoddy position that discourages them from taking risks: a city state with no hinterlands to retreat to, and that means, if they lose one battle..."

"They lose everything." Darius completed, nodding. "Hm. I can accept that."

"We will have to. So long as we are the largest beast within this forest, they will sharpen our claws that we don't use it against them, so let us accept their trust, and remain their greatest threat."

"Very well. We should speak more of this tomorrow, with my brother to listen."

"Of course, of course. I will be sharing you my visions by then."

And with a parting word and a reminder of Darius's nightly drill of his men, the fellow trifar left his chamber. When the door shut, a quiet sigh lifted Jericho, and he softly withdrew into his bed. Darius's intrusion drained his libido for tonight, and with the inclusion of stately affairs into his words, his thoughts kept daring to think of them, and not of his plan to subjugate Camille. Still, he had her visions within him, and they were perfect memories he could return to. He would study them, note the useful details, and know where his leverage lies. She was no noblewoman of a petty kingdom. She was the equalizer of Piltover and Zaun, the hand of the Piltovian Archminister, and a  _true_  challenge.

As he lie in bed, he had already begun to design how she would submit to him. He had the power. He had her secret.

And he would have his first grand conquest, and the pleasure of equal magnitude, and though he imagined the surge of completion he'd feel, Swain thought it would not be enough. Like Noxus, he would not be so easily satisfied with one victory.

* * *

AN: This was a trashy idea I had while reading about Swain's thing for secrets. This is basically Swain, the esteemed Noxian Grand General, blackmailing powerful ladies from sovereign nations with his demon ability for sex and subsequently using their secrets against them, like he would with his political opponents and Noxus's enemies.

I've never written League erotica before, and I don't like the idea of that being my main thing, but here's my shot at it. I had an idea of turning this into a sexual allegory about the exploitative/manipulative nature of politics in totalitarian societies and how Swain'll make Noxus great again: securing arms deals with Piltover (Camille), exploiting the Freljord situation (Ashe, Sej, and Liss), stunting the rebirth of the Shuriman empire before they become genuine competition in the superpower business (Sivir), and putting Bilgewater under Noxus's pocket to bolster its naval capability (MF), all of this having the end goal of defeating hostile nations like the Demacians, Ionians, and the Rakkor (Fiora, Irelia, Karma, Leona). Also, dealing with the internal conflict to make things easier for the birdman (Le Blanc) . This is smut, but I guess it's now sYmBoliC sMuT.

I Expect a lot of political intrigue from all the power dynamics of the characters, and the personal backgrounds to add up to the context of the smut. Don't expect anything extreme but do expect some dark turns, given that this is all about manipulation and politics, but there'll be nothing too over-the-top.

I would really appreciate criticism. Sexual writing isn't really my thing but I hope I've done well enough here.

Thanks for reading this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own League of Legends or any of its characters.


	2. Chapter 2

**In the Middle, Innocence**

Tea flowed out of a kettle and into a silver teacup, where steam then spewed and rolled upward into Camille's eyes, unblinking to the heat, and their hextech azures uncompromising to the bright neon lights of pink and green that embraced Baroness Avarita's office.

The baroness's skin was pearl among silken flesh and her smiling lips, that of a young maiden's despite her true age of sixty-eight. She had not a mark of that age; not in the limber shape of her body, in the sharp lashes of her eyes, in the multi-colored swirls of her hair, nor in the doll-like array of her teeth. She was smiling when Camille sliced her throat with the bladed ridge of her knee, so she had a good view of that, as well as of her Zaunite bodyguards' bodies eviscerated across the floor of her office, with the rustic stench of their blood concocting into the chem-oil of their augments; the only smells to overpower the aroma of the baroness's perfumes.

Their conversation had taken a less-than-amicable turn, but there was enough time for a polite exchange and tea before that. The polite exchange did not last long, but there was, of course, always time for tea. Baroness Avarita was courteous enough to provide some from her personal collection, but, unfortunately, not quick enough to dodge her bladed legs, so while Camille drank an exotic brew of imported Ionian tea, arterial blood was still fresh escaping the baroness's throat, leaking down into the snow-tiger fur of her coat.

Outside this office, a muffled cacophony of Zaunite dance music, the viscous grunting of men, and the moans of women blared, a tortuous brew for her augmented ears. The Piltovian lady sighed and set her teacup down. There was always time for tea, and it was seldom peacefully enjoyed. Half of the mission was over. She stood up from the lion skin chair opposite the baroness, her bladed legs now unobscured; bloodied limbs of titanium alloy, perfectly balanced to her control, forming a precise yet resolute stand.

"Your transgression was beyond compromise, but at least your tea was delicious." Her voice sounded as a synthetic mesh veiling a stern lady's tone; paced, mechanical yet expressive and articulate.

To Camille's quip, the dead baroness, of course, could not respond, save for the involuntary twitching of her eyes and the final wheezes of air escaping her gashed throat. She had made the baroness answer for an unacceptable insult. She had put her in her place. Camille was done here.

And so she turned for the office doors, her blades striding with even grace beneath the steel-gray coattails flowing behind her redingote attire. Half done was well begun. The operation's completion was nearing her. She had one more objective to deal with before she could finally leave this place.

When she left the baroness's office, she was greeted once again with a sight that bent a disgusted frown. The hyperenergetic music cut into her ears like razor-wind, and the flashing electric colors of the room contested with the interface of her scanners. Camille sighed, intaking the chaotic amalgamate of smells: food, alcohol, chem, cologne, sweat, saliva and the unmistakable salt-laced musk of genitalia and their fluids. Naked and shining limbs of bodies crowded all three floors of the baroness's compound. They moved in colliding and slapping rhythms, in positions that involved using the couches, tables, and walls, and so preoccupied were they, that no one bothered to notice the Piltovian lady.

 _Eugh,_  she thought. She scanned for her objective, and as she strode through, searching, her eyes glided over repulsive scenes. A posh Zaunite, Baroness Avarita believed in Piltovian elitism outside her estate, often speaking of purity among those above, but her hypocrisy was palpable in this chamber: Shurimans, Ionians, Freljordians, Noxians, and  _Zaunites_  among Piltovian flesh.

Camille passed by dark-skinned Shuriman maidens who licked carpets as burly hands pulled their rears into warm and girthful crotches, the force of their coitus causing the women's golden accessories to clink along with every thrust, ever gaining speed, only stopping either to fill their throats and wombs, or to blemish their sun-kissed faces, rears, and jewelry with sticky ejaculation. A thick-bottomed Shuriman woman pressed herself down against the mouth of a masturbating man, a bronze phallus against his teeth, shining brightly with the woman's ascent, her liquids slicking down his jaw.

Apart from this, the lady witnessed the sweat of Freljordian dames being forced out of their icy skins as groins hotter than hearthfire pumped up and into them like machinework, spurting out the warm mixture of sweat and semen until they comprised the paint of the chamber's walls. One was held by her buttocks, suspended between a muscular man's legs, who bucked into the Freljordian woman with such rigor that her braided golden hair fluttered; her buttocks drummed; and her breasts jiggled to the force of the man's thighs. She was then pushed against the back of a couch, the man's movement intensifying, then peaking as he spilled three generous dollops of seed into her, contesting for every inch of her warm space. He relaxed, and with the last throbbing pangs of pleasure, embraced the Freljordian to passionately twine his tongue with hers.

The Noxian women were a slightly more adventurous bunch. They took other ladies, mostly the ones having done with the men, by the spaces between their thighs, then they would kiss and lather tongue, lip, and nipple with vigorous and biting mouths. Camille saw three: a Noxian man and woman helping themselves with an Ionian, whose eyes rolled back at the feelings of fingers and lips working together to greedily engage her slit while a muscular Noxian crotch ground again and again inward her throat. An Ionian man would then come behind the Noxian lady who was pleasuring the girl of his own nationality, and he'd then gingerly mount and use her, forcing out submissive moans from the Noxian with the push of his vigor translating into the inserting fingers and licking tongue that invaded the Ionian whore's slit, and into the beat of the Noxian man's breadth conquering her throat.

It was endless, unbridled, and heterogenous fucking.

Food, drink, and pink wrappers of instantaneously-acting birth control pills were littered beneath the drove of humping shadows. Sauces and alcohols sometimes mixed with stray fluids that were left to decay on the carpets, and it was inevitable to see traces of pubic hair not far from these, for the continuous action loosened the hairs from their mothers and fathers.

Camille thought, if she still had the ability to vomit out her tea, now would have been the best time to do so.

After much searching, and awkward 'excuse me's' as she passed by the busy throng, she had found the scene which upsetted her the most. Shrugging away lines of beads serving as the door, she walked into a sub-chamber lit by a dim purple light, and caught the nauseating, ultra-sweet aroma of Zaunite shimmer. Sure enough, upon a table at the center of this room, tin buckets filled with shimmer glowed brightly, their spilled drops shining like nuggets of diamond, dripping from used brushes of multiple sizes. This, along with empty bottles of shimmerwine, caused a contorted expression in Camille's face. Shimmer was a drug, an addictive one, capable of whittling skin through excessive use, and whoever was in the room, had used it enough times not to care.

And atop a wall-couch, she saw more of the drug on the alabaster slenderness of a Piltovian girl, her breasts and buttocks bereft with the lathered substance and its rapidly-shifting colors, which was a manifestation of the emotions she felt as two brown-skinned Zaunite men kneaded their members into both her orifices. One took her above and behind, anally, and one below, vaginally, her velvety cream-white thighs spread out firmly against the man's crotch. She sucked on the augmented metal fingers of the man taking her anus, the first and second fingers sliding in and out of her shimmer-slathered lips. The Zaunites too had shimmer brushed onto them, mostly by their thighs and groins, where the substance flashed a kaleidoscope of hues, going in and out of both her sphincter and slit in constant bestial pounding lubricated by the liquid drug.

Camille's mouth gaped. She wondered for a moment if this had been truly the objective she was searching for. If it were, the consequences were unspeakable. The Piltovian girl's body, conditioned and beautified for a future prospective marriage to another clan, was being violated by the urges of two Zaunite men, one of them feeding her shimmerwine through the augment fingers coated with the substance, the hand over her mouth bridling her like a pony. Her once gracefully flowing auburn hair, fashioned with a white dahlia headpiece her late father had gifted, was now jumping wildly to the labor-sweated bodies exploring her as if she were a toy.

 _This can't be_.

The woman sandwiched between the two nondescript Zaunites was helpless between them, but she did not struggle, she embraced each thrust with welcoming stirs of her hips and yells demanding more in a voice of a girl who had recently just come of age. Her breasts hopped to the flow of brutish movement enveloping her and her tongue tumbled liberally against the metal fingers fiddling into her lips as their bodies rocked against one another.

She was too busy moaning and whimpering to hear Camille call her.

"Sofia Arvino."

The man below her grunted. "Ah, I'm cumming! I'm cumming inside a Piltie's tight cunt! I can't believe it!"

"A Piltie? More like a desperate sumpsnipe slut from the fucking Entresol!"

That was it. Anything but the girl's status.

And as they injected hot globs of Zaunite lineage into Sofia, Camille fired both hooks from her omnidirectional navigation apparatus, speeding out from the sides of her blade legs, and thwumping as they latched into the wall, particles of brain matter strung like bloody spider silk across their titanium strings. The shimmer of the two Zaunites faded into white, its inactive color, for killing the brain stopped the emotions influencing the hues.

Sofia's shimmer, however, blinked even more rapidly when she wondered why they stopped, only to scream when she saw the half-sundered head of the man below her, the chipped-off bits of his skull scattered on the couch. She nudged her body, yelping each time their dead members wormed inside her, and struggled to get out of the two limp corpses, hunks of freshly slaughtered meat stuck into her holes.

"How intolerably pathetic." Camille said, retracting her hooks before looking down upon the girl. With the hooks pulling the bodies towards Camille, Sofia fell sideways alongside them, hard onto the floor, whilst attempting to crawl out as seed seeped out of her orifices and as blood dripped down the wall-couch. When she stood up, she whimpered, screamed, and looked with terrible dismay in her emerald eyes at the lady now witnessing this all.

"You!" she shouted, her throat confusing both sentence and sob, "How… dare you! How  _fucking_  dare you!"

Her hair was ruffled to the point of total disarray; shimmer was strobing red to the color of rage; and her body shivered with both the aftermath of pleasure and the sudden hold of shock. Most of all, and Camille noticed this, tears gleamed in her eyes and down her cheeks, the same face Sofia carried when she had killed someone dear to the girl.

And when the girl left the mortified embrace of the men, she crawled to Camille, pounding herself against her redingote, repeating over and over: "How  _fucking_  dare you! How fucking _, fucking_ dare you!"

She slammed her fist at Camille, but the lady let her be, cooly observing this breakdown with immovable electric eyes. She felt her little fists beat at her, until the girl, exhausted from sex and rage, resorted to sobbing. She was now nothing but a naked and broken spirit overcome with terror. Her shimmer strobed again in different colors: first red, then violet, then gray. When the girl had withdrawn to whimpers, the lady towering above her spoke.

" _Fucking?_ " Camille said, as if the word were new to her. "Hm,  _fucking_." Sofia looked up, and revealed wide-eyes, confused. "Tell me, Sofia, where did you learn this word and the gall to do what it means? Was it from Baron Volkage, or these two dead Zaunites?"

Sofia did not answer, only sobbed against the broad side of Camille's left blade.

"Did you know that Baroness Avarita's estate is filled with  _fucking_?" She stressed the word, setting apart. To Sofia, it was more unnatural than Camille's augmented chimeric form. "Did you know the  _fucking_  implications of visiting this place? And do you  _fucking_  know that the intelligencers of every  _fucking_  clan knows that you are here?"

Sofia wept again. Her tears fused with the shimmer, now nothing but the gray of grief.

"Sofia, my dear, you are a  _fucking_  disgrace to your family." Camille said. "Seeing you like this and hearing you speak such vulgar a word disgusts me beyond any degree in this world. Your father was a timid yet intelligent man who saw your future as Clan Arvino's heiress, and now you're here, squandering it by copulating with  _Zaunite shimmerfiends!"_

"You killed my husband!" Sofia screamed at her; shimmer flashing crimson. "You killed my husband, you heartless hextech demon! You killed Volkage, my first and  _only_ love! You are the monster of us all, and you are the reason why I am here! I just wanted to feel his embrace again. I just wanted  _him_ again. He promised me everything and more: a  _life_! And  _you_ took that away! I do not want my father's inheritance! I do not want to go back to Bluewind Court! I refuse-"

The back of Camille's hand slammed hard against Sofia's face, sending her to the ground in a yelp with her tears splattering across the floor. She sobbed once again; a devastated thing, and Camille did not speak for a moment. She only listened to the incomprehensible wailings of Sofia. Camille realized but did not relent: She destroyed something beautiful. Innocence.

But she was Sofia Arvino, a gear in the machine that held Piltover aloft, a thread in the delicate tightrope of balance, and though a groveling lump before her, she was a  _Piltovian_  of the Bluewind Court, a potential Archminister someday, and neither Camille nor the clans could disown, exile, or even execute her. She was too delicate, too important, and too strategic. And, with that, if she had refused to take the pills which would prevent the Zaunite seed, still freshly trickling down between her buttocks, from actualizing, it may be too late for her.

Fortunately, among the brushes of shimmer, Camille spotted crumpled pink wrapper. She took a deep breath, one of relief, before speaking to Sofia.

"Privilege is earned, my dear. Privilege  _is power_. It simply cannot be offered to the impure and incapable, for if you do, Piltover, our fragile society, our  _progress_ , will suffer." She leaned down, like a monument with a static bottom come to life, and pulled the girl's chin up to look into the apathetic hextech circuits of her eyes. "You are young, selfish, gullible, and yet to realize your piece in the grander scheme, Arvino. All that you are doing now is but your dying innocence gasping for air as reality smothers it."

Camille let go of the girl for her head to bow down, hair draping her face. Sofia could not reply, only stare. Her shimmer was wearing off. The colors were turning translucent as the drug's power depleted.

"Now, I suggest you come with me." Camille said, a hand against her hip. "You are not irredeemable, as you might believe. I have negotiated with other intelligencers to keep this secret, for the sake of your father's memory. This ensures you remain good in the eyes of the court and the people."

"Where will I go?" Sofia said, eyes red but now drifting.

"If you truly do not wish to be in Bluewind Court, then I can make arrangements to accommodate you in our clan. My niece, Justine, the Mistress of Clan Ferros, will oversee and protect you for a year or so until you can be responsible for your own clan. You will learn what you must know as a member of the court, and most of what your father failed to teach you. You will learn to see Piltover and Zaun as I do, as  _we_ do, and as you  _should_."

Sofia turned her head away. She was silent, and Camille smiled. She was considering it, while at the same time recognizing it as a power move in favor of Ferros, entangling her clan with them. The more naive version of her would have either immediately accepted it or denied it. She was doing neither. She was weighing the nuances; the gray between black and white. She was finally thinking.

"Or, you can choose to live the kind of 'life' Volkage promised you and spend your days being exploited by the chem-barons. Your inheritance,  _privilege_ , will be forfeit from you, transferred to your less desirable uncle, and you will no longer be mistress nor part of the court. Piltover is safe; your family lives on, and your uncle simply has to be elected in order to officially replace you, and consequently preserve your clan's position in court. Your father's bloodline, however, will be diluted into the blood of riffraff, as will yours, but that shouldn't be a problem for you, correct?"

Sofia still did not answer.

"But, whatever you choose, I will not stop you, but you must choose  _now_. The Trifarix of Noxus will be visiting the court tomorrow, and it is ideal, maybe even imperative, that all mistresses and masters of the clans be present. You will definitely sit in once you come with me, but if you choose to leave, your uncle will 'represent' you in your absence with your consent. We do  _not_  want to demonstrate even a single empty seat in front of a newly reunited nation merely because you took too long to decide."

For a while, Sofia stared down, thinking over her choice. Camille waited. The girl's conviction about wanting a new life and refusing her inherited court tenure was suddenly in hesitation. A gear in the delicate machine was unrusting.

"Well?"

Sofia had stopped sobbing. She stood up, meeting eyes with Camille, who offered her a cold smirk curled upon her face. The Zaunites turned the girl into a woman, but she, the Principal Intelligencer of Clan Ferros, would undo the damage, and mold her into a proper lady.

Now, the shimmer was nothing but transparent fluid, completely diminished. Once a display of endless colors, the effects of the shimmer have left her, and so was the high they brought,

So was the last of her innocence.

* * *

AN: This is the start of the Camille arc, following the events in her comic,  _Severed Ties;_  her story,  _The Weakest Heart,_  and after the diplomatic mission to Noxus which the first chapter established. I derived Baroness Avarita's name from the Latin form of the word "avarice" ( _avaritia_ ). It's the attribute responsible for eliminating Sofia Arvino's innocence; the sexual avarice of the Zaunites, the political avarice of the Piltovians, and the conflict of the two which puts her 'in the middle' (hence the chapter's name). Also, Sofia Arvino and Baron Volkage are not original characters of mine. They were the ones from Camille's comic,  _Severed Ties_ , whose marriage of 'love' Camille violently cancelled. Shimmer and shimmerfiends can also be found in some Zaunite short stories by Riot, as well as the Entresol, a place between Zaun and Piltover.

I released a lot of sexual imagery here as well as some character building for Camille. I hope I did an okay job in my descriptions. The first part when Camille walks into the orgy chamber was meant to be an erotic representation of some of Runeterra's conflicting situations: Shuriman 'ascent' (ascension of the empire), Freljordian 'generous three dollops of seed contesting for space' (three sisters vying for territory), the Noxian and Ionian quadsome (the Noxian invasion and its effects on Ionian unity, i.e. an Ionian lady being fingered by a Noxian, who, in retaliation, is fucked by an Ionian from behind, the force of his thrusting affecting the fingered Ionian lady, only to push her further into the groin of the Noxian man she'd been fellating), and Piltover-Zaun's enforced inequality for the benefit of the privileged (Zaunites managing to screw a Piltovian lady, which results in bloody consequences). Again, sYmBoLic SmUt.

I understand that some would want scenes without much context attached, and this sort of chapter deals with that, to make room for the more context-heavy and politically endearing scenes, which this story was made for. Suffice to say, this probably won't be the only one with such scenes.

I am unsure as to the quality of my erotic descriptions, being inexperienced with writing them, so I welcome criticism, as long as it points out where I went wrong so that I can correct myself in the future. Also, I hope that I have been convincing with the descriptions of Camille's personality, her augmented nature, and the political discourse involving her thusfar. I want to portray the kind of woman Swain is going to first dominate, and establish the appropriate context surrounding it, which I hope adds to the vigor and significance of the scenes.

Thank you again and see you on the next one.


	3. Chapter 3

Note: This is a rather long chapter. If you want to skip to the smut, start from the last " **III** " (page break) you see. Do so at your own risk.

**Introspection**

It was the stalwart tradewinds of the Piltovian sky that had dried the Zaunite blood on the titanium of Camille's blade-legs. The steel; tempered, treated, and techmaturgically augmented, never oxidized. Not a single encrustation of rust plagued the silver edge, whereupon ultramarine hextech energies reticulated a lattice of cerulean traceries through the alloy. The steel, often employed, could only stain, and such stains could be cleaned; the soulless metal, repolished, and its edges, re-sharpened.

The same way hextech steel could not corrode, a hextech heart could not be burdened.

Yet, Camille drummed her gloved fingers like pumps in a chem-forge's assembly line, the motion as repetitive as thoughts and memories she could not dismiss. Her crystalline heart, affixed to the core of her chest, thrummed quietly through the skywind lull as she stood, balanced on the polished marble of the balcony floor.

Her other hand was withdrawn behind her back while she looked to the lavender daybreak horizon, stretching like grand curtains outward both ends of the world. Through the Piltovian pylons, spires, and bridges above, and the Zaunite chem-forges, cliffs, and fumes beneath, she saw the equilibrium she and her family had toiled to preserve.

And through the sound of her thrumming heart and Sofia's tear-ridden eyes; eyes that, in a different time, were once her own, there she saw the price.

The estate of Clan Ferros, among the highest in the district of Piltover's most prestigious clans, was only two levels below Bluewind Court. From where she stood, the Piltovian cityscape was a pointillism of architecture mattressing the vast coastal plains of Bluewind Strait, the fringe parting Valoran to the north and Shurima to the south.

And there, at its heart, cradling the sea, were the Sun Gates; the Corridor of East and West, where the many sails of nations gathered in its wharfed and crane-lined thoroughfares: the crimson of Noxian war-barges, the amber of Shuriman grain-galleys, and the striped blue of Freljordian ice-runners. Like a stream of Ionian koi they were, passing to and fro, anchoring only for rest, gold, or opportunity, all of which Piltover offered in abundance.

But as she waited on the balcony, her eyes had been affixed not to the paltry assortment of foreign and civilian vessels, but to the imposing fleet of sable-beaked bulwarks of robust cedar and sea-worthy metal. They were braced with riveted steel, gunned with hextech batteries, and powered by two repositories of oars complemented by rows of magnificent white sails. The prides of Piltovian captains, home for many a Zaunite sailors and oarsmen alike, and a symbol of their society's combined power and efficiency: dreadnoughts. Basked in small formations, they were; shadows in the tranquil waters, like titanic snapperfangs among the passing herd of port dwellers.

Metal heels clicked on the balcony floor, their pace composed, relaxed, until they came to a snappy halt beside Camille. But this did not rouse her attention.

Justine Ferros's fashion shared much the same palette as her aunt; the heraldic colors of gold, silver, cobalt, and iron, the fruits of the earth of which the Ferros family first drew their wealth even before the first brick of the Sun Gates' foundations were mortared. Such colors were evident in her ferro-black tafetta ring gloves, and silver-gray frock coat laced with ramifications of gold and blue that ran down the fraille fabrics clinging slimmly to her lithe and youthful figure. It was fitting that her hair was brown as well, much like the earth which Ferros bore prospect, and, where Camille stood tall and delicately balanced upon her blade-legs, Justine was short and relatively upright on her normal legs. Still, it was as if she mimicked the composure of their family's principal intelligencer.

"The servants are now attending to Sofia. She will be tidied up and," she cleared her throat, " _sterilized_  before nightfall,  _tatie_."

Camille's response was a pefunctory nod alone, despite the affectionate  _tatie_  which always reminded her the status of being Justine's aunt. That came first, before being her intelligencer. But not always.

For a while, Justine was silent, moving only to brush the hazel locks of her tied hair, as if fixing her presentation before Camille even if the intelligencer hadn't been looking at her.

"Is there something troubling you,  _tatie_? I notice you hadn't cleaned the blood from the operation. I assume things went slightly more awry than usual?"

She was still silent. Justine glanced at her grand-aunt, the topaz hue of her eyes unable to tell the thoughts beneath Camille's hextech ceruleans, but they had a hint as to where they looked; the Sun Gates, and the ironskin fleet by its watery maw.

"The Arvinos own twenty-one dreadnoughts." Camille said, without looking at her grand-niece. Whenever Camille's words began, so did Justine's attentiveness. "Four are purposed for private use, ten fitted for trade, the others, armed escorts." Camille turned to Justine, and when the glowing circuits of augment eyes came to view, Justine's shoulders lifted to a deep breath. "Can you imagine that the  _Arvino_  girl, Sofia, considered discarding her right to those ships, her right to her  _family's fleet_ , for some childish, stuporous love fantasy?"

"Well, it sounds absolutely ridiculous,  _tatie_." To agree with her aunt was the best option when at lost for words. "The Arvinos are shipbuilders, artificers of trade and travel,  _Piltover's very lifeblood_. Obviously, her late father never taught her foresight to comprehend their stature. How could she refuse her position and her family so recklessly?"

Camille's eyes withdrew back to the horizon which steadily wavered, deepening into the indigo of daybreak; a Shuriman color, like those in Bel'zhun. Her voice softened. "Indeed, how could she? Absolutely ridiculous."

Thanks to Camille's rigorous efforts, Justine had learned her duty well at her age, when the intelligencer had not. Her grand-niece had not an idea the hidden weight of the words she had uttered.

"She knows the significance of her status, the significance of her  _clan_ , but..."

"She does not  _understand_ her clan. That is why she is here, Justine." Camille completed. "Up until his death, Sofia's father, Giordino Arvino, groomed her as if she were some lady-in-waiting, spoiling her and keeping her ignorant from our  _stately_ dealings. Sofia's naivety to the more 'private affairs' of Piltover, and her submission towards circumstance should come as no surprise."

"That explains why she did not see the meaning of her father's timely death after she'd come of age."

"That it was all the machination of her uncle Vitale?" Camille said. "Clearly. A shame she never saw through that conspiracy; how her uncle so subtly introduced the Zaunite baron to her, a week after he had her father poisoned, and let their clandestine meetings be…"

Justine smirked. "Hm, sly."

"Yes, quite sly, for an Arvino, no less. If Sofia had married Volkage, as Vitale had planned, then, by tradition of purity, the title of clan master would have transferred to Vitale, and Volkage would have enjoyed Arvino's patronage."

"And they would have had a deal well struck."

"But, of course, dear, such deals do not last under our vigilance. We did what their principal intelligencer failed to do." Camille smiled, "Rest assured, the ties we severed between Volkage and Sofia, deserved to be, especially when we had discovered its true nature. She thought she was doing it out of  _love_ ,"

And Camille's lips stilled, stopping her next thought from turning into words.  _I almost dared to believe her._  Instead, she gave a light sigh and continued. "The truth is rarely so innocent."

"Well, it is a fortune you saved the girl,  _tatie_."

"A fortune for the Arvinos, for us, and for Piltover, my dear. And,  _save_?" a chuckle, "I suppose the word is appropriate. Baroness Avarita did intend to turn her into an exotic harlot. Her clients would have been the chem-barons paying exorbitant fees to… use her."

" _Eugh._ " Justine grimaced. "Why is their principal intelligencer Adalbert so incompetent? I find it hard to believe that the girl was ignorant enough to trust that abominable hag's mock promise of 'sanctuary'. Good riddance."

"Avarita was but another grayling who stepped out of line. We deal with those neatly, but Sofia's uncle, a  _Piltovian_  willing to cooperate with a Zaunite chem-baron for power? A complication. We cannot simply eliminate him, lest we devolve into feud, which would be counterproductive to Piltovian stability. That is why Sofia being in our estate today is  _essential_. To preserve her position, is to keep an ambitious Zaunite collaborator, Vitale Arvino, from holding power in Bluewind Court."

"Surely, Vitale will react to us keeping Sofia. He may present this as a case for the Archminister, turn this into the intrigue of the court, and send their own intelligencers to 'settle' the matter."

Camille laughed. "Vitale has no legitimate power, Justine, what are you saying? You are describing actions only Sofia could rightfully do." Then, she turned to her grand-niece, whose face had slightly reddened to this slip of intelligence. "See, this is part of the problem. Let us not forget that Sofia is  _mistress of her clan_ , an undercooked one due to her father's early death. We cannot see her as yet another victim of event. She has the privilege. She has the power, but she lacks the  _duty_. We can guide her in that regard."

"Hm." Justine paused. "Then what are we to do with her,  _tatie_?"

In that moment, a group of ivory heels tapped from the balcony entrance. Two tall Piltovian servants flanked a freshly groomed Sofia Arvino as they approached both mistress and principal intelligencer of Clan Ferros.

Newly changed from the modest sail-white pelisse of Arvino tradition, the girl now donned a black doublet, contoured with gilding, and adorned with streamlined patterns of silver and blue; a dress slim-fitted and rich with metallic colors, the bearings of Clan Ferros. Her jade-green eyes could tell naught but a battle against anxiousness brought about by the sight of the two ladies before her. They were the conservators of a grand scheme she had yet to comprehend: the status quo.

Seeing the Arvino in the customary dyes of her clan, Camille greeted Sofia with a smile, and turned to face her, blade-legs tipping into the balcony floor as she adjusted. However, the girl was transfixed on the blood dried and uncleaned upon the lady's hextech metal, the same steel that had sliced her lover's head with a truthful strike.

With time, she would come to see it as a necessary strike..

Her hands were clasped together, nervously rubbing their fingers. Sofia awaited what the principal intelligencer and the mistress of Clan Ferros had to say; like a miscreant child before her disappointed orderlies. But they knew better. She was no longer a child. In due time, she would stand among them, a mistress, a  _lady_.

And the first step was proper attire.

Satisfied with what she saw, Camille looked to Justine and answered her question.

"Aquaint her with the family."

**III**

The second best place to clean and maintain Camille's augmented parts was in the prime machinarium of Ferros's estate. It was manned with the most seasoned artificers their family treasury could afford, and, by their standards, such artificers were  _only_  the most accomplished apprentas and meisters in Piltover's leading academies, all of which however, had only a modicum of understanding concerning the hextech technology running through Camille's veins. So she did not go there.

The best were destined to be the spearheads progress and innovation, the Piltovian virtues that her family protected with blood and nurtured with sweat. To this, they could only settle for the superlatives in every aspect, for Ferros was the most powerful among the grandest clans of Piltover, and the most excellent machines required parts of the  _highest_ quality.

And that is why the prime machinarium was only  _second_  best.

The greatest of her family's contributions to Piltover were often the product of a singular brilliant mind: the lead artificer, a genius with nigh-unparalleled brilliance, quintessential to Clan Ferros's technological advantage. To Camille, all those groveling and blabbering in her prime machinarium were the overworked products of an institution with the purpose of educating people to obediently nod their heads until something vaguely innovative tumbles out. At best, they were adequate assistants for the lead artificer. At worst, they were exactly what the academies trained them to be.

No, she needed the  _best_ to care for her most delicate parts: a man whom Piltover could rely on to bolster the march of progress.

And he lived in Zaun. And he was Zaunite.

Camille's grappling lines slid back into the sides of her augment legs, the sound of zipping iron resounding into the silence. The Gray carpeted the wet cobblestone streets in a low-lying fog the stench of which was acrid and textured, dry, like burnt hair in a sewer, and capable of poisoning one's lungs with continuous exposure. Luckily, the artificer responsible for her augmentations designed that she need not an esophilter to pacify the Gray. She was too beautiful for that, she remembered him quip. But now was not a good time to remember. Blood was still on her steel, and so were the shreds of Sofia's fantasies. The steel was forged from such shreds.

The intelligencer walked to the wrought iron gates that most children in Emberlift Alley feared. The others saw it as sanctuary. Scones of fiery orange, not the usual green of Zaun, of which the alley credits part of its name, glowed underneath the ledges and the breather pipes that transferred oxygenated air to combat the ever-encroaching gray. Under the embering lights, Camille cast a dark shadow that consumed the Zaunite street before a seemingly run-down artisan's house. No eyes watched her at this time. The children that often visited the man in this house were asleep. He did not need sleep. And she was no child.

She entered the tall gate, pushing it aside, and closing it behind her with a metallic creak. He always left it unlocked for the children. It ensured he always had a sample at the ready. But he'd leave the door barred, chained shut by locks with gear mechanisms. Camille sighed. She had to use the window again. It was his way of knowing that he had a visitor. It was often inconvenient.

She slid her towering form through an open window, and the instant her first leg touched the dry floor, an ear-splitting alarm rang.

But, a few seconds later, it was switched off with the flick of a metallic finger, as if in routine.  _A sign that he is working_. He was always working.

Dust, oil, and a sour chemical stench cleaved into the air. The white light of the room buffed on the glass jars lining the bookshelves held against the walls, all of which contained parts, both augment and organic ones, labeled with masking tapes and sorted in rows by type. Opposite these shelves, and like mannequins left undone, there stood humanoid models and experiments, joined by their less anthropomorphic automatons that mainly served as reference; some had missing parts, others were covered in white sheets. All of them, most certainly, were used for augments.

At the middle of this room, was a leather gurney which partly resembled a reclining chair with armrests, if not for the straps situated for every limb. Above this gurney, wired to the ceiling, was a cylindrical body possessing drills, scalpels, saws, and grippers, all dangling at the ends of metal arms, arranged in an almost conglomerate fashion pointing towards the gurney below. Though he was rather professional, he was not so neat in practice, for the ends of most instruments were copper with the dry blood of his last "patient" or "specimen", whichever purpose he had deemed them.

She heard the sound of singeing, the whizz of concentrated energy spewing from the mouth of his augment third arm affixed to his shoulder. It was welding something in place upon his workbench, and, if Camille had to guess, his work involved yet another graft of organs and bolts.

But a pure hextech crystal's sapphire glow draping his augment faceplate told her otherwise.

"Busy as always, Viktor."

It took a moment for him to notice the principal intelligencer of Clan Ferros standing there atop her blade-legs, and speaking to him with her anticipating eyes. It was as if she had caught a cellovinnaire deep into his chorus.

"Yes." he said, engorged in his work as much as he were in the glow of hextech. "Quite."

Camille wondered for a moment if his work had finally caught up to his brain, but then Viktor looked at her, the glowing furnace-amber of his faceplate's eyepieces more unblinking than her cerulean glance.

"Your compensation for that will be great, I assure you."

"I am not thinking of the compensation. What you handed me is a marvel above all that I have ever seen. Whoever designed it was a true visionary, a  _genius._ " Viktor said, his accent thick and raspy, like grating metal, through his augment lungs; and his tone, composed and mechanical, like hers, but not quite as expressive. He had no visible mouth, only the faceplate where it should be.

"And we expect you to improve on that genius, as always." Camille said. "Continue to do so, and your supply of authentic crystals will be steady."

"I understand." he said, "But there is much that I have yet to uncover. The energy held within is impressive, yes, but the schematics you showed me, the schematics to  _your heart_ ,  _what the crystal is truly capable of powering_ ; it can be the trigger of a revolution, to both science and society."

Camille rolled her eyes. She has heard this all before, once in a different life, again and again in this one. "Hakim Naderi's ingenuity had its limits. We presume you can break them. He shared your ideals and capabilities, yet was held back by," then her words betrayed her, "the very weaknesses you describe."

"Hm. He  _was_ the architect of your heart..." Viktor said. "It makes sense, both literally and metaphorically."

Camille huffed. "Don't you go there, Viktor. It is unprofessional. You know how I am not fond of you jabbing at my past."

"I was making no jab. I simply stated the truth. I would have liked to meet him." Viktor said. The words were intriguing to her, coming from an augmented man who lived like a hermit. He was among the very few who was privy to that memory. She had no choice but to indulge him of it in the past, not because of her consistent patronage, but because of a certain  _incident_.

Then the blood on Camille's legs caught his eye. She noticed his glance and Viktor asked: "Another operation?"

"Yes, and not a particularly enjoyable one. Do mind getting to work before I visit Francesca?"

"Fine."

The augment man stood from his slouch, revealing the segmented metal plates layered upon his form - limbs and all - spliced atop his skin like slabs of metal sculpted to his torso. His third arm hung from his shoulder, rotating and tilting in place in the likeness of three pistons— a shoulder, elbow, and wrist — waltzing gently by their flexible joints; and at the core of its iron palm there glowed a golden eye of energy. It seemed to have a mind of its own. "The gurney, please." Viktor gestured a steel-skinned hand towards it.

Camille followed, blades ticking on the dirty white floor. Dry blood was still caked on the gurney, and seeing this, she stopped and knit her brows. "Eugh. Honestly, Viktor, when will you learn to clean your equipment?"

An azure beam fired out of Vikor's third arm, towards the inclined gurney, flourishing up and down the blood-soaked leather until the beam expired. The dry blood had been cleansed.

"Thank you." Camille said, and , smoothing her coat-tails, sat, keeping her arms on the inclined chair's rests. She stretched her blade-legs out on the footrest and reclined. With the need to balance with every step, resting on her back was all the more distinct. "I continue to wonder why you never bother to tidy things up."

"Because this is my laboratory, not a Promenade spa."

"Well, it is the closest thing I have to a spa, the prime machinarium being a velocipede pit-stop. And don't think me so undignified that I would seek beauty services in Promenade."

"Always so unbearably meticulous." Viktor said as he came near the gurney. And without warning, he fired the same beam to Camille's legs and felt its tender immolation. She imagined the heat, as if the metal were her skin, and the beam, a hot stream of water. Viktor focused on it, his faceplate as still as the emotion in his tone. "Zaunite blood and chem-oil, I detect. The usual." Viktor said, "And also, trace amounts of… semen? What did you-"

"Don't ask." Camille snapped. "It was a messy operation with  _disgusting_  details. That, and the fact that I did not participate in anything  _abhorrent_ , is all you need to know."

"I see." Viktor mumbled. "It appears I am not the only who has to deal with organic fluids staining my instruments. Perhaps you should be the one cleaning up after yourself?"

Camille rolled her eyes."Point made, Viktor. Get it over with now, will you?"

The beam ended, and what was left, was titanium alloy in a polished sheen; clean of blood. Viktor finished cleaning the delicate metal with his augment hand in seconds where the machinarium needed minutes with their cleansing chemicals and microfibers. But more importantly, he did this quietly, leaving room for Camille's thoughts. The prime machinarium was not as serene.

He continued. "Now to whet the blade…" The beam fired once more, this time in an amber energy, gliding across the edges. Camille felt the degrees hotter through the hextech lattice, but only the heat, and not the stress nor the pain. It relaxed her.

"About Francesca," Camille began, "I imagine you have attended well to the holo-chamber. What program did you input today?"

"Cellovinna lessons, as according to schedule." Viktor said, working down to the 'ankle' of her left blade. "The system is still awaiting you, however. You are slightly late."

Slightly was never acceptable. Camille could not be late for any of Ferros's operations and the Archminister's requests, but for Francesca, her tardiness happened far more often than she'd like to admit. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "The home program hasn't run yet, hasn't it?"

"I have stalled it."

"Oh, dear. Yet another stall..."

"We can un-stall the home program now and bring her out of the lesson matrix, if that is necessary for you."

"No. I won't have that today." Camille said. "I must attend to her now. The Trifarix of Noxus will be visiting the court  _tomorrow_ by afternoon. They will be staying in the Prospectus for a few days. There will be no guarantee that I may be able to visit during their time here."

"The Trifarix is visiting?" Viktor said. The beam ended, and he walked to a side of the room, where the automatons were lined. "That is intriguing."

"You would have known that if you bothered to stay in touch with the world, but, it is unprecedented, isn't it?"

"To a degree."

"No more than half a month ago,  _we_ were in Noxus; the principal intelligencers, clan masters, and the Archminister himself. Now they are here."

"Hmph. Were your talks not comprehensive enough? What could they possibly need?" Viktor undraped one automaton, which turned out to be Camille's prosthetic legs attached to a rack. They were pre-dressed in legging, and, granted she often paid Viktor visits after operations, they were often matched to her intelligencer redingote, as it was now.

"Nothing we know for certain. We did discuss their defeat in Ionia and the role of Zaunite techmaturgy in that war, among others. Though they lost, they could not deny the usefulness of the weapons they applied and  _purchased_  from us. The Noxian command, however, as of now, is internally debating the use of those weapons, and the cost of employing it in a mass scale. The Archminister was privately told that."

"Is that why your arms proposals resulted to nothing?" Viktor said. He rolled the rack out of its place and nearer to the gurney, where Camille sat. "Because they had not decided?"

"We do not know if their indecision is the true reason. It was clear that they did not expect us to be so 'forthcoming' with our arms proposals, as they often directed the discussion to economy and topics of transnational affairs. But the Trifarix did assure our neutrality and that our full autonomy was an 'asset', agenda-wise. Still, the Archminister is careful not to take them for their word."

"Interesting." Viktor pulled the surgical apparatus down and inspected a part of it which Camille could not see. Instead, she eyed the prosthetic legs, cut from just where the thigh meets the groin. It was attuned to her hextech systems; cream-white and shapely like an authentic copy of her long-discarded organic legs, and though it was shorter than her augment blades, it had been effective in making her appear more human. Hakim made that sure.

"It seems Noxus does not want you bringing the arms deals to them." Viktor continued.

"That is clear, and, provided the fact that they barely negotiated any military stipulations and proposals when we were there, there is a strong possibility that tomorrow's talks will discuss such matters on  _their own terms_. Thus, the Archminister and the court are anticipating an aggressive motion from Noxus tomorrow." Camille said. "But as far as the Trifarix is concerned, Piltover-Zaun is 'neutral' but, of course, that does not mean we are isolated from their expansionist agendas. They will attempt to find some use in us."

"Weapons, trade, and technology."

"And military intelligence. Do you know how many war-masons the enforcement caught thus far? Seventeen. One was detained just last Progress Day. Boram Darkwill in his reign sent no such spies. He was more concerned with trade, striving to be more and more ameliorable with the clans and the Archminister.

"How could he not? Where you unpacked the dreadnought convoys, his tax collectors were sure to follow. And, the Trifarix has spies here?" Viktor said, before firing a beam towards the surgical apparatus above Camille. Suddenly, it appeared to move like an iron animal, jumping to life, before glowering over the hextech lady. As the beam fired, Viktor maintained control and directed the machine to Camille's left leg; with arms of screwdrivers, ion-beams, and grippers coming towards it.

"In Zaun? We do not know but have strong reason to believe there are, but for Piltover, we are certain. We believe that the war-masons are a retaliatory act for the 'commercial surveyors' we planted in Noxus during Darkwill's reign." The tendrils of the machine worked her augment legs. Each hand served its own function, and with Viktor's precise control, they were liken to the tools and hands of apprentas in the prime machinarium. She preferred this.

Camille continued. "It is because of our surveyors' economic and advisoral sway with the old aristocracy that Noxus became our foremost supplier of minerals and material, which drives both our technological development and industry. Now, with the establishment of the Trifarix and the subsequent downfall of the aristocratic rule in Noxus, the surveyors' political implications have completely and utterly subverted, which puts the court in a sensitive position vis-à-vis the Trifarix. "

Camille felt her right augment blade-leg detach, pulled by a set of grippers, while another set of metal arms took a fresh prosthetic leg out of the rack, settling her blade-leg in its place. There was no pain, but a feeling of lost control, and she watched the augment leg leave her, like a weapon pulled from her possession, and the prosthetic near her; a worn part of hers carrying a revenant greeting.

"The Trifarix seems to possess quite the leverage." Viktor observed. His eye-pieces were set to the connections that the surgical apparatus made as it melded the gleaming hextech-blue gap were it had detached her blade-leg. It glowed like diamond veins racing to the core of a stump. "They have the option to halt all exports directed to the Sun Gates. Zaun alone consumes more metal than what both cities can drill out of the cliffs and coasts, and if Noxus alone were to stop its raw exports, the chem-forges will undoubtedly starve without the needed materials to manufacture."

"And so will our machinariums. The court considered the likeliness of this. If we and Noxus were to engage in trade war, we would be at the shorter end of the stick; the effects of scarcity will harm our industries more than it will theirs, and that is not considering the labor they lend us. If such a crisis were to transpire, the Archminister plans sourcing from Demacia as a last resort, but that very action, undoubtedly, will brand us 'collaborators' by the Noxians. If we start using Demacian steel and sweat, we would have no choice but to expect fleets of Noxian war-barges from Rokrund and Bel'zhun heading to the Sun Gates, and the inevitable naval blockade, or worse, bombardment."

"Neither Piltover nor Zaun can afford that."

"True." Camille sighed. "And even if we win a single battle or a string of battles against Noxus, costly victories they will be. A war of attrition will ensue. Ionia, Demacia, and the Freljord could sustain such a type of war, what with all their land and raw resources. We, however, cannot, and so tomorrow's talks will be crucial – all the military implications provided."

The right prosthetic leg had finished attuning; the hextech-infused blood re-committed to the body part, and the first nervous action they'd brought, was the curling and stretching of her toes. Even Hakim's prosthetics fooled her. It felt human to move it.

The surgical apparatus heaved up and into her left augment blade-leg, disconnecting it from her.

"Hm." Viktor sounded. "The court has underestimated this new regime. They did not anticipate how problematic the Trifarix would turn out to be."

"Nobody did, Viktor, not Piltover, not Zaun, and certainly not the world. Noxus has had a cycle of coups and assassinations; power struggles that had amounted to nothing but a change of leadership, and not a change of hierarchy and societal structure. We thought Swain, their upstart grand general and de facto ruler, to be only another redundant chapter of history."

"A miscalculation."

"I am ashamed to admit it so. When the surveyors reported of complete institutional reforms following the death of Darkwill, the court should have listened carefully. Instead, most of the clans, even the Archminister, treated the issue too conservatively. They thought matters in Noxus would 'simmer down' as they always had before." Camille said. The apparatus pulled away her left blade-leg and began work with attaching its prosthetic version. "Ironic, is it not? Our court stands for the value of progress, but refused to see that Noxus itself was capable of progressing from their old practices. That is why the court motion to let our surveyors remain was won by a majority, and risk the scrutiny of this new Noxian order."

"Another example of sky-blood arrogance driving us into difficult times." Viktor said. Camille heard the 'sky-blood' term too many times to be offended; from both Viktor, and a myriad of dead Zaunites. Her blade-legs, having no heels, couldn't afford the other anti-Piltovian slang  _well-heeled_ , so  _sky-blood_ , the more derogatory term, became special for Camille. Viktor continued. "Unsoundly but validly arguing through past experiences succeeded because of outdated perceptions. A natural flaw in arbitrary judgment."

"Not one minister knows the kind of man Jericho Swain is, Viktor. If they did, we would have already improved and updated our contingencies against Noxus  _before_  we even embarked on our diplomatic visit." Camille watched the arms of the apparatus grip, beam, and bolt the right prosthetic. "But we will not be threshergeese on the diplomatic chopping block tomorrow. The Archminister and the court may have misjudged the Noxians but we have made every effort to adapt and plan accordingly for their next move."

"I assume the two cities will be eager to know what you have prepared tomorrow." Viktor said passively, already weary from their exchange about politics. "It is done."

Camille curled the toes on her right leg, and, not long, raised both her legs up and bent their knees. They were working. Having command of toes and an actual sole instead of her blade-legs never was as different as cogs and wheels were to each other. She lifted herself out of the gurney, and fixed her feet into the matching boots Viktor had prepared.

"That's better." Camile said, and attempted to stand. Her system, needing to re-adjust itself to her new form of balance, caused her to wonk and wiggle awkwardly, like a bust on two stilts. She used Viktor's arm as support, as she always would, before regaining total control. Viktor made no remark. They had done this too many times to care. But working on the schematics to her heart, he could not help but notice now.

"He designed that too, didn't he?"

Camille let go of him, and stood on her own, more confident. Though one might deem her prosthetics uncanny, it never was so for Camille. It had structure; the feeling of bone, muscle, skin, pressure, balance, weight, and gait, as if they had never left her for her bladed augments.

"Yes." Camille said. "I suppose whatever remains human, Hakim engineered."

"Does that include what you feel for Francesca?"

"Perhaps." Camille said, and in the wander of her eyes, her blade-legs, resting on the rack for her prosthetics, caught them. They wanted her back so soon, but she would not let them. For her.

"I see the barrier you wish for me to shatter. Emotions, the only flaw in his design. A weapon has no need of it." Viktor said. "You retain empathy, irrelevant to your heart's intended function."

Blood no longer stained her augment legs, the liquid remnants of moments when she had torn flesh and taken life. But her look did not stay to them, for her eyes drifted, and remained on the hints of rust crusting the scalpels of the surgical apparatus. Upon their blades, there corroded scabs and warts on the steel. Those could never be cleaned.

"So long as the memories remain, Viktor, I will."

**III**

They grew the child in a chem-vat. Camille never liked to think about that whenever she walked the scantily-lit basement (or mini tunnel-complex) of Viktor's residence. He was walking alongside her, saying not a word, for this was routine, much like how he would switch his intruder alarm off. Here, in his basement, he kept machines for soldering and forging parts for his own augments, so an earthen and solution-like smell persisted, as did the heat from the scarce ventilation and activity of passively operating generators.

Walking by crates containing Viktor's purchases and 'sponsorships' from Ferros, Camille could retrace the steps she had taken at the time when Francesca had been developing in her womb. That day, she had asked Viktor to undertake a task never untaken by even the greatest Piltovian meister, and the proof of its accomplishment, was now to the left of her; a glass tube constructed into a specialized apparatus, embraced by swathes of wires attached to tanks containing nutrition and essential fluids. Francesca floated in that tube for nine months, in this repurposed chem-vat. She was like a ball dangling from a string. When they took her out, and into the holo-chamber, she was a wriggling, little pearlescent figurine, wailing to the touch of existence upon her skin.

The door to the holo-chamber was set apart from Viktor's other belongings as it was isolated to its own corner, carved into the earth beneath the Zaunite cliffs harboring Emberlift Alley. Camille had this built with the intention being a stimulation room for combat and mock operations, but with Francesca, that intention had to change.

Camille's boots padded between the metallic clatter of Viktor's iron feet. They stopped near the riveted doors of the holo-chamber, situated beside a panel of valves, gauges, indicators, buttons, and pipes, presented before a single chair. Parallel to this, to the other side of the door, were crates containing clothes, sacks of food, jugs of water, toys, emptied cans of milk, and many more necessities for the child's early days of sustenance. Entry points of chutes leading into the room were close by them. The holo-chamber's exterior should have had more of Ferros's aesthetic, but time concerns pressured Viktor to resort to Zaunite simplicity, that is riveted metal and compact shapes.

He took his seat before the massive control panel while Camille positioned herself opposite the holo-chamber's door. She heaved a deep breath, as if forcing an unwanted part of her into a cage.

"You are twenty-five minutes late for the program." Viktor said. With the inspection of gauges and the press of many buttons and switches, he began to make adjustments for Camille's entrance, with the help of his third arm.

Twenty-five minutes bit into her ears.

"I am ready."

The doors opened, and there was the shrill sound of a cellovinna engorged in a masterpiece composition, and the quiet stare of Francesca.

**III**

Nothing is perhaps more unappeasable than a bored child. But Francesca was rarely bored. She sat on a concert chair, among the posh, realistically rendered Piltovian audience, and swung her little feet as she swayed her head to the sound of an elegant bow stroking across a virtuoso's cellovinna. The ends of her little blue skirt fluttered to her kicks as energetically as the cellovinna's notes, and her eyes, robust ambers, blinked like fast-approaching stars in the darkness of the concert hall.

In the hours when Camille was gone or busy, a system's version of her stood as her substitute. One of Viktor's marvels, it fulfilled the most basic parental duties and had limited response to the child's questions and interactions. However, it was set to always comply to the child's wishes in order to avoid confrontation and as such had no capacity for discipline, education, and socialization, components of humanity that Viktor found impossible to replicate in hextech intelligence.

Such components were fundamental, and that only Camille could offer the child. A machine could never be a mother. She was.

And so, when Camille entered the holo-chamber, she was ported into the current position of her substitute, like a puppet turned human. Immediately, she felt herself sitting, hands clasped in front of her, as they watched, from a balcony, a lone virtuoso pouring his soul into the dazzle of the amber lights.

But Camille's attention could not persist on the virtuoso. It wanted to stay on Francesca, as if seeking assurance that she still existed in this room where nothing truly existed, as she herself existed outside in a world completely unknown to the child, and sought it she did, in the child's powder-white skin and in her youth-dazzled eyes, in every glance, like a glimmer of a Shuriman sunset, amber, like those of her fathers. Oh, how Camille saw him in her wondering eyes, how it filled her chest with such a rejuvenating yet violent wind amid its silence and briefness.

She smiled at Francesca's mere look, and the girl was never embarrassed to reflect this smile, in the way that young children do so innocently and freely to the people they loved.  _Innocence and freedom._ Camille thought.  _What simple joys._

An applause followed the conclusion of the virtuoso, and all stood. It was a standing ovation , and Francesca had learned to stand and clap (very rigorously so), and she did this first before Camille, who for a moment wondered why all stood up before realizing, and then standing and joining in the applause herself.

And so the concert ended, but they sat there as the Piltovian holo-audience began to leave, bringing with them craftily generated murmurs of praise for the virtuoso and of inquiries concerning their dealings this night.

" _Maman,_ " Francesca began, and her voice was husky, like that of those in Bel'zhun, and her amber eyes were wide as they were in wonder and unafraid of Camille's cerulean gaze, "what song was that one?"

" _An Ode to Janna_." Camille said, smiling. She knew from the song's notable finale, one that a Zaunite, of all people, devised. "It was one of the first songs I learned on the cellovinna. Did you enjoy it?"

"I loved it!" Francesca said, the enthusiasm in her voice distinct from the passive mumbles of the crowd. "It was quiet at first, the virtuoso's fingers were slow, then suddenly, the fingers went  _crazy_!"

"Yes, poetic, isn't it? Quiet like Janna's breeze in the beginning, and then 'crazy' like her tempests near the end." Camille said. "Notice the poetry embedded into the melo—"

"Can we meet Janna,  _maman_?" Francesca said. "If they had to make a song and all sorts of stories about her winds, she must be a lovely person."

The existence of Janna was a belief held mostly by the Zaunites, and Camille knew that well, as well as she knew that there was no trace of her existence, but the holo-chamber was capable of turning belief into reality, with the proper input, that is, thus she did not dispute the child's thinking. Francesca's volition to believe in whatever she wanted, and to think it real, was part of something beautiful Camille could not impinge.

"In a different time, my dear." Camille said.

"Well, if we can't visit her," Francesca said, "perhaps I can learn that song the cellovinna? If we get to meet her, I can play it for her! She will like it!"

Camille giggled, not helping herself away from the intoxicating nature of the child's enthusiasm to learn, and enthusiasm in general. As Hakim had been, Francesca was everything to Camille but a Ferros. She carried no clan, no duty, and no inherent obligation to offer sacrifice. Only passion and enthusiasm Only innocence and the joy of it. Only freedom and her own little mutinies to destiny.

In days long gone, she was what Hakim had promised of Camille. And the lady would do all in her power to offer the child the choices deprived of her; to love and love freely, to cherish and cherish sincerely, and to be anything, without the burdens of birthright and legacy. The same burdens that gleamed in the tears misting Sofia's eyes. The same burdens that gleamed in the azure of Camille's hextech heart.

She had vowed this when her eyes gazed into the fleshy ball floating within the liquid confines of its chem-vat. Anything but a lady of her clan. Anything but Sofia.

And anything but herself.

Camille smiled and pressed Francesca's warm hand, lifting her up from her seat. "I am sure Janna will love to hear you play."

**III**

Francesca had her own room imprinted into the holo-chamber's rendering. With constant adjustment and monitoring from Viktor on the outside, their transition to this room was as seamless and much like reality: walking from the concert hall in Promenade and into their house close by, the house Hakim had rented before he 'lived' in Ferros's prime machinarium. The child walked with Camille, indulging her with questions of music and the history attached to them, as they tread into the night-fallen streets under the topaz arclight arrays beaming across the sidewalks like they did the heavens above them.

They stopped near a pretzel-cart, manned by a non-augmented Piltovian. Francesca wanted one pretzel, so she pointed a pale finger to it, and Camille went and bought her one. The man smiled and quipped at how lovely they appeared together.

"Beautiful, the both of you." he smiled. To Camille it was uncanny, but to Francesca, it was polite.

"Thank you, mister!" Francesca said, grinning at the man, before turning her back. Camille smiled at her manners and left. When the food vendor was out of sight, as was the other pedestrians who were not in view, they snapped into twig-straight bodies, flicking into holographic silhouettes, their very forms jittering in and out of the reality of the holo-chamber like the uncertain flickers of apparitions forever suspended between oblivion and existence.

It was to save memory.

When they arrived at the house, it appeared almost no different from the other Piltovian houses of the district, and its distinction was mainly in its interior. It was undoubtedly Shuriman, primarily from the smell of pungent spices that always told of the next salty meal, and such a smell pervaded in the main room and hinted at the second floor, where their bedroom was located. Apart from this, the features were of Bel'zhun and Kalamandan origin, evident in the palm furnitures, the wicker-mat floors, and the wall decorations of ralsijii horns and eka'sul skin.

A Shuriman house in the Piltovian city, an abode of two souls, much like Francesca. Entering this place never felt old for Camille. In the holo-chamber, nothing felt old for her. She walked with a smile so passive she thought it ridiculous of her to keep it, but the child had the same sort of grin, and she suddenly it all felt so appropriate.

"Are you hungry, dear?" Camille said, as she and the child removed their footwear.

"No,  _maman_. You gave me plenty to eat before we went to the concert hall, and that pretzel filled me up even more!" she said, and yawned. "Maybe we can start learning  _An Ode to Janna_  before I go to sleep? I, uhm, really want to try it…"

"Very well," Camille said. Being late always resulted to this: that Francesca was already tired or getting drowsy. It was lost time which Camille never wanted, but had had it so often, that Francesca thought it their own little habit.

They went upstairs into the child's room. It was a master bedroom with a bed large enough for a tuskvore to sleep soundly. Lighting the room were white lights, drawing into a balcony with a view of the Promenade streets and city lights outside. There, by the walls, were a wardrobe, two full bookshelves, a shelf for Francesca's collections, a study table, and an allotted space for her cellovinna.

The child was just beginning to open her cellovinna case.

"Now, now, Francesca," Camille said, sitting herself by a spare chair near her study. "Clothes."

Francesca looked down at her own dress, and, as if suddenly aware, turned up to Camille. "Oh, right. Sorry,  _maman_."

Camille smiled. "There is no need to be sorry."

Not long, Camille helped the child don a house dress, more loose-fitted to help with the heat of the morning for it was of a Shuriman fashion. After closing its buttons and giving her sleeves a few good tugs, she smiled at Francesca and tilted her head. "Now, go on, get your cellovinna."

With renewed excitement, Francesca took her cellovinna case. She unlocked it, the hinges upon its hardened material going  _click_  with the switch of her little thumbs. Once opened, Francesca took out her cellovinna and its bow. Camille watched her closely, and admired how well the child had learned discipline with her instrument. She positioned her hands to proper form, and, by plucking the strings one by one, Francesca inspected their pitch, and, whenever she heard the slightest deviation in tune, she twisted the appropriate tuning pegs until the strings were aligned to note. Once tuned, she nodded her head, and set her bow to the strings.

"The first part was…" Francesca's fingers upon the fingerboard hopped into a chord formation. And, with the stroke of her bow, began the first melody. "Like this?" Her movement was gentle, like a lone cloud floating in the sky or a breeze over water, carrying with it the skyward lull of her fingers.

"Softly." Camille nodded. "Yes."

"The movements are simple enough in the beginning…" Francesca said, before withdrawing into an impenetrable focus. Camille had always observed the pucker of Francesca's lips, humming the melody the virtuoso had played not long ago, while her hands worked to manifest that out of memory and into music. She had the same habit long ago.

Francesca began to shut her eyes and smile as the music possessed all thought into harmony, a harmony born from a passion Camille had seeded into her heart even before her first book and her first step into the 'outside world'. But then, as the melody progressed from its mellow pace and into rapidity, like a breeze into a tempest, Francesca suddenly stopped. Her fingers had blundered.

"Ah." she sounded, shaking her head, before recovering and returning full speed into the song, only to stop again, then play again, then stop at another error, until she had to pause to trace where she left and hum the next notes. Making this mistake, Francesca glanced at Camille like an embarrassed apprenta auditioning for a clan's patronship, but unlike them, Camille had all the tolerance she could spare. For Francesca, at least.

"Remember, Francesca, patience." Camille said, "The cellovinna is the body; the bow, the mind, and you…"

"The soul." The child completed with a sigh. "They must be in balance. Right, right. I was having too much  _soul,_ wasn't I?"

"As always." Camille said with a smile. "You are excited to play this piece, I see, and from memory, no less. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Practice will tame the wildness of passion, and, that simply means…"

Francesca smirked back. "Keep playing." With a nod from Camille, Francesca did so. Whenever there was a gap in her memory, Camille simply reminded her of the correct stroke or correct formation, having mastered this piece herself. She felt quite pleased with herself then, when she had excelled in virtually all of the classic pieces of Piltovian music literature, but there was no pleasure quite as close as to seeing Francesca learn her own songs.

And on and on, the child went, repeating certain parts until she could not err. On and on, did Camille correct and Francesca understand, with neither confusion nor vexation to snap at the delicate strings that rendered both the smile, laughter, and music that bonded them beneath the hologram night.

In the music, the monotone humming of Camille's heart drowned like static in the background, and in the lifted haze, she saw the youth she had offered all so long ago, and listened for an echo of the man who had loved her smile more than the heart he had made to immortalize her. She listened for Francesca. She listened to her yawn.

And when her passion had calmed and resigned Francesca to rest, nothing above and before ever seemed important as their biddings of good night. Camille stayed long after Francesca had drifted to sleep, watching the child as if to guard against a nightmare, and regretfully she did, for even here duty bound her, reminded by the hextech humming of her heart in the silence of the room.

She could not stay. The sorrows of sacrifice were as dim as the digital stars. Hakim's afterimage was as lucent as the drowsy tears of Francesca's dreambound eyes. But she could not stay. She exited the holo-chamber, and when the doors shut behind her, she gave a quiet nod to Viktor.

The room flickered in holographic transition, devolving the walls, the furniture, and the precious cellovinna into ethereal forms of gridlines and transparent space. Only in the child's waking hours did colors paint this world. Only when she could notice, that the truth was hidden from her, yet silently known by Camille.

It was to save memory.

**III**

It was quiet in the estate of Clan Ferros, partly because its inhabitants were sleeping and because some had gone for innocent midnight outings in Promenade or in the Lux Aeterna. Camille needed neither sleep nor an outing to excite her. Her augmentations allowed her no need to rest. Her age had detached her from the rush of youthful escapades. That was all so long ago, she remembered, and she did so more frequently, after Stevan's death and Francesca's birth.

Tall windows of artisan quartz lined the hall to her room, opposite paintings of the family's greatest intelligencers in antiquity. The chandeliers were turned off for the night, and so, in the darkness, there were her ghostly relatives' unblinking eyes, snapped into stares, that seemed to accompany Camille's slow prosthetic step to her room. She once had dreams of surpassing the men and women in the paintings. Now they were nothing more than decorations in the background.

She opened the door to her suite and was immediately flushed in dim automatic lights of orange emanating from scones that hung from the ceiling; a familiar and welcoming sensation. A scent of Ionian waterflower visited her, and every detail that had the slightest chance of becoming disorderly, was fixed, prim and proper, in its place.

Camille's suite had four rooms: the main room, where items related to her daily lifestyle and augmentations were present; the office where her study, bookshelves and other collections resided; the bedroom which was larger than two other rooms combined; and the bathroom, self-explanatory, and this was the first room she entered.

In her bathroom, a mirror occupied the entirety of one wall, opposite the shower pane which equaled its length. A mild yet tangy fragrance greeted Camille, and when she shut the door, she heard the sound of the automatic boilers readying her warm bath beyond the marble walls. Where the shower pane ended, there was a door to a little room that housed a bath-pool. Normally, she would have her bath in this pool, but the shower appealed to her tonight. Its rush could help silence her thoughts.

She caught sight of her own reflection on the mirror wall, and followed her form down to the suppleness of her reattached prosthetics' thighs and shins. She had seemed, for a moment, free, without the purpose that which the blade-legs were forged for, but the hextech heart glowed below her neck, and immediately, she noticed how unclean she appeared: untidy hair, dirty hands, and sweat, full of sweat, beneath the fabric of her redingote.

_Stains upon me_ , she thought.  _Once again._

But today, with her encounter with Sofia in the baroness's estate and her visit to Francesca, her stains felt different, less regular from what they normally felt after her operations. This moment, she sensed that they extended within her skin, deeper into her.

Camille sighed. A conspiracy prodded among her thoughts. She had not the time for that now, not in the bathroom. Now, she felt dirty. So she removed her garments, helped by the slickness of her sweat and the unzipping pulls of her finger. Her redingote peeled from the cream of her thighs and her shoulders, the inner side of its fabric gleaming with perspiration as much as her naked limbs. With the redingote gone, Camille only had the embrace of the cool air to flush upon her body, save for her breast and groin, where tight-fitting underwear still clung. She grimaced. She remembered how the comfort and elegance of lingerie fit her better. It was Hakim's opinion. But such opinions were irrelevant for her combat attire.

With tired fingers, Camille unclipped her bra, then removing it upwards through crossed arms, until her plump Piltovian breasts dropped freely and tastefully into the cold air. The sight of them, like her room, was welcome to her after a long day. She tilted her chest left and right, for to feel the weight of her breasts rock to the movements of her chest after hours of business, was akin to letting loose a tongue that had been kept inside one's mouth for an entire week.

She removed her underwear next, slipping it off with the pull of her hands, and stepping out of each hole, one foot after another, to feel her nakedness liberated from the heat and the sweat. A part of it itched, so she let her hand down, and scratched next to her thigh, her fingertips running through the trimmed curls of her white pubic hair, crinkling with each scratch that relieved. And Camille saw herself through all this. How based, how instinctual, how human, it was, to still have and feel her sensitive features _. A weapon has no need of it,_ she thought, a statement both of herself and of Viktor. But Hakim let her keep them. He could not dismantle the form of the woman he loved. Of all the parts he had augmented, all the work he had done to improve her body, those parts of her, remained the ones he had touched the most.

_Why am I recalling all this now?_  Camille shook her head. She untied her hair and let the shadows of her locks fall. She stepped into the shower, closing the door of her shower pane, and twisted a knob. Streams of warm water whished out showerheads that surrounded her, and all the grime that adhered to her skin, the dirt and blood between them, and the depleted coolness of sweat, drowned to the rush of water, trickling from fingers, nipples, toes, and lips.

The water, however, could not muffle her idle thoughts. She stood still for a moment after wetting her entire body, not bothering to apply her imported, insta-lux soaps, oils, and shampoos. Instead, she had reviewed what had happened this day. She recalled how she had been late for Francesca, which triggered her to reprimand herself, and she recalled her plans for Sofia and for the Noxian delegation tomorrow. But these thoughts were fleeting, merely assessed and re-assessed, to ensure her that she had thought of them carefully.

But one stayed with her out of the shower, wrapping her mind. It was a stain, one that she could not clean with water. So she tried so with her soaps, oils, and shampoos, and got on with her normal shower routine. But even when she draped herself in towels, and dried her hair and body, it remained, like oil stuck to cotton.

Afterwards, Camille dressed herself in a night robe, not in a new redingote, and let her hair be tied simply. She needed no sleep, and to wear a night robe, meant that she had postponed her other intents for the night. And for that, she wore black lingerie. She felt that she could afford comfort tonight, maybe even the unnecessary relief of sleep, but also, strangely, privacy. Her thoughts felt a need for her focus, her solitude, while she tackled them. She wanted to be alone.

So Camille stepped out of her dressing room, completely clean and freshened up, but she did not relish in this feeling, as she usually did, when, in dimmed blue night lights, she walked to the window that spanned one complete side of her bedroom. The mellow white of residential areas, the fiery shimmers of machinariums, the golden beacons of the Sun Gates, and the neon riot of Piltovian entertainment districts battled amongst each other, through the venomous green ramifying glows of the Zaunite underworld below. But Camille saw their war as futile, for their brilliance was naught but specks in the sublimity of night.

She stood leaning by the window which kept in her mind in the confines of privacy, separating her from the hectic troubles she had with the world outside. Franesca, privacy, and Sofia, troubles. Clearer she observed, that thought which had been following her, in the cerulean mirror-image of her eyes ghosting through the cityscape beyond the glass.

She remembered the forceful, rhythmic meeting of crotches and thighs in the sex hive that was Avarita's estate, and in that memory and in the silence of her bedroom, she imagined the moaning, the slapping, and the shlushing of bodies entirely crazed to pleasure. She remembered how she walked through this fleshy melee with the pink wrappers of instant-action birth control pills like the trampled grass beneath a battle. She remembered the insanity, the depravity, and the sheer hedonism that had so completely engulfed the first creatures to accommodate the faculties for reason and virtue.

But tonight, at this moment, she remembered what she felt, when she saw, not Sofia, but a different lady among the busy throng, who was augmented, much like herself. A muscular Noxian man was pulling both her steel-augmented arms like that of a plow as he drove himself in and out between the warm and soft squeeze of her buttocks. He gnashed his teeth, as the woman hung out her tongue, moaning at his compelling rigor, which however, did not satisfy him. The Noxian let her go, leaving her a mannequin with its head against a cushion, then,, with a feet against the lady's back, detached one of her arms.

Camille felt the gentle sinking of her teeth into her lower lip.

And in a metallic voice, the augmented woman squirmed, bucked, and then moaned lustfully as she felt him insert the fingers of her detached steel arm into her sphincter, lubricated by his spit, and had herself wirelessly fiddle her anus through this same arm, driving itself even deeper, when the Noxian mounted her, running his hands through her breasts, as he and the machine arm worked like hand and lever to please the augmented lady. Finally, as he filled the lady with liquid heat, he bent closer and lathered his tongue on the amputated stump where her arm had been connected.

A wave of heat and redness flushed through Camille's face. She put a palm up to her lips, squeezing her eyes shut, as she felt the heat of a disappointed breath traverse the softness of her own fingers.

_Unbecoming,_ she thought,  _so unbecoming._   _To use one's augments for debauchery, to take pleasure from it, it is all so… savage, uncouth, inane…_

And in the first inches of a rising tide, Camille saw the thoughts coming through the approaching water that threatened to engulf her. She resisted to go farther, to let her cold, insurmountable logic concede to what she felt. She had sacrificed these very feelings: the tingling in her skin, the hollowing in her hips, and the heat surrounding her inner thighs; she had sacrificed all these that she had felt now for Hakim. She had no right to feel them. She had promised never to again.

But in that same tide that threatened to consume her,  _he_  was what she saw deeper into the rushing water. How he courted her, how he impressed her, how he challenged her, and bested her intellect and wit. Oh, and there was so much more, Camille thought, in his passion for machinery, his whispering poetry, his twining calloused fingers, his labor-laden scent, and his firm, precise, and disarming touches. She remembered, and remembered more, and in doing so, pictured the bed in which Francesca slept, in Hakim's old house.

She recalled the friction of the sheets, the warmth of his arms, the stern flow of his muscles, and the mingling of his tongue with her own, as he filled the emptiness between her young and alabaster thighs with such force, such rigor, and such promises solidified in throbbing fire and bucking embrace. She recalled her own moans, his grunts, the calls of their names, and the pink wrapper by the night stand, the same pink wrappers that littered Avarita's orgy and sparked hints of her memory. They were young enough that time, and when she had him live in the prime machinarium to pursue the advanced stages of her augments (and to afford more privacy), they grew even wilder, more experimental, until each day could not pass if he had not filled and overfilled her in at least one orifice, and if at least two pink wrappers where not disposed quietly into a bin.

The detached steel arm inserted into the augmented lady; it had reminded Camille so much,  _too_ much. He used such arms, such limbs, and more… Only now did she notice the gentle rubbing of her hand upon her own thigh, the exploration of the other above her waist, to her stomach, and to the bottom of her breasts. Each inch that grazed her skin was a vortex that tingled her toes, enflamed into her groin, and smoldered into the warm spit gathering behind her lips.

And the scene she had most detested, the Zaunites and Sofia, outsized her previous thoughts, and caused her to dare a fingertip to the side of her mouth. An augmented mans fingers pumping shimmer into the girl's thirsting tongue, it engorged the intelligencer with its baseness, its lack of elegance, and its offensive vulgarity. All so much like Hakim.

Through this, as she watched the cityscape below, Camille refused herself, akin to a pinned officer behind dwindling cover. To continue on, a part of her silently pleaded, would brand her a hypocrite, not simply to other's eyes, but to her own. Worse, if she surrendered, she was liable to repeat, to justify, to wash away the guilt with the logic she had weaponized against others, which was now threatening to put her in front of its iron barrel.

She searched for a counterbalance to the insurgence of her feelings. Guilt, regret, those where her ghosts, the tempering flame to her soul, and now she searched them to plead for their defense, something to remind her that these passions were what she sacrificed, that Hakim was gone, and that the pain of his departure and her augmentation was from the love and passion they once had, forever lost.

She remembered Francesca, and in the haze of her surging thoughts, her mind had plastered her own child's face over a naked Sofia, but with time, and with force, she returned to the cellovinna concert, and recalled the shine of her eyes and her innocent,  _innocent_ smile.

Yes, innocence. The child was innocent. Camille and Hakim were innocent , untouched by the demands of the world beyond. If only all people can relish in their innocence, unburdened by the truths brought by duty. And that thought, this effort to subdue the reawakened lusts and cravings, betrayed her. This idea of relishing in her innocence communicated with her longing fingers, and gradually, she realized, that the illusion of privacy which the walls now carried concealed the gaze of duty, of family, and of sacrifice, until they were joined to the dim stars above the cityscape.

Then her own voice turned traitor:  _This will not harm me… Only this night, and nothing more…_

_No! Would Francesca have this of her mother? Is it not enough for the child to exist to appease your sorrows for the past? Behave yourself, Camille! This is a privilege you've long discarded. You've no right to desire this any longer!_

"Program: music." Camille commanded in the brief control she had found in the mutinous escalation of her breaths. Desperate, she hoped this would stir in her a crushing feeling of regret, a true reminder of the joys untouched by sensual and political avarice: " _An Ode to Janna._ "

Within the walls, a mechanical click and a sound of rolling static followed her words, giving way to the mellow voice of a cellovinna, singing to the strokes of a virtuoso's bow, as gentle as a cloud over the sea, a wind before a resting feather, a breath before a whisper…

A breeze, a sliding of a finger…

_Think of this,_ she argued,  _think of what you are doing! You have progressed far beyond the others only to regress in the safety of your privacy?! You coward! Hypocrite!_

But Camille need not think. Beneath the loose flaps of her robes, her pale hands explored her bareness, rallying the shivers of her skin wherever they went. From her thigh, to her hips, to her chest, to the arcs of her breast, until she could feel the heat of her own breath slam against a finger that had reached her lips as a reaction to the palm now straying to the inner side of her thigh.

_What if they are watching? Father, mother, Stevan, and everyone else? Hakim! What if he is watching you shamelessly reduce yourself in his name? End this, Camille!_

But he was the reason why she could still feel this all, from her lips, to her prosthetic thighs. If he was watching, she dared to think this: that he enjoyed seeing his last efforts come to more fruition. She could not hear the hum of her hextech heart, not through the music, not through exhaling air… "Ah." Camille sounded, a slow voice intermingled with a sharp breath. She felt the heaviness of each rise and fall of her chest, and with it, the gentle force with which it pushed her breasts in and out.

Teasingly did her hand roam the space beneath her right breast. It caressed at the softness beneath it, until her left hand followed suit, and had both her breasts in her hold. The press of its weight against her palm wove with the sensitivity of the plump flesh beneath.

She bit her lip, feeling every unsure push of her chest. Her nipples were bare in their stiffness, tingling in anticipation for her the play of her fingers. And on the ghostly mirror of the window pane, she watched herself fondle her breasts, twirling each nipple against her fingers, that they rolled like loose yet rigid levers, bending and perking to her curious fingertips.

The fondling of her own breasts, paired with the teasing roam of her fingers at the inner sides of her thigh, were a catalyst to the machinarium that was her augmented body. All the feelings she had woken, now flowed like a hot stream towards the moistening warmth below her.

With so much concession to her unconscious whims, her authoritative, scolding voice, was lost in the soft yet progressive tones of the music, and as Camille felt the slick, soft, and electrifying kiss of her sheathe to the inner side of her forefinger, she heard her defiant voice's last words, a desperate plea:

_What if the other intelligencers know? What if the other clans know? What if Justine knows? What if all of Piltover knows? What if all of the world knows? What if…_

Camille met her own cerulean gaze in the mirror pane, and saw the hardened bite to her lip, the flushing of her cream-white cheeks, and the amble escalation of her breasts to her warm exhales. She saw the likeness of those in Avarita's estate. The likeness of Sofia. At the sight of this likeness, she did not feel any revulsion, nor felt anymore protest from herself, but felt an overwhelming rush of… sympathy. She saw her eyes of cerulean blue, one with Sofia's emeralds, and remembered a time when her tears, were once her own…

Camille turned away from the window pane. She unknotted her night robe, and letting it slip off of her pristine shoulders and puddle to the floor, which then revealed her bare buttocks oscillating like smooth, supple, cream-polished marbles gleaming in the dim blue hextech lights as she walked towards the side of her bed,

Her bed was situated against a wall, opposite the window pane, and it was the type to have perfectly-round decorative posts at each of its corners. She crawled to the post nearest to the wall and twisted it until it came off like casing. Since it was a large detachable post, it had a hollow compartment inside when removed, hiding an item she had stowed long ago.

And there, in the shade of her room, she could make out its shape. She had hidden this here and not in her own personal safe with a more complicated lock, as an appeasement to her past "indulgences" by ensuring a possible "second chance" at pleasing herself, which, however, she had successfully delayed by force of business and resistance. Until today.

She took the hidden item out of its compartment. It was one of Hakim's last inventions, one he had left with a note before he had put the prime machinarium, Camille, and Piltover behind. A stray chip fell during his initial examination of the new, pure hextech crystals, and he kept this chip as a little token for his first attempt at unraveling its energy. He had implanted this same chip, in secret, to power the device now in Camille's hands.

Hence, this device was specifically designed for her, just as her prosthetic legs were, and, detecting that she was naked, aroused, and staring intently at it, it had hardened to a full, upright stand, like a limp finger to a stern point. The likeness of a real phallus was uncanny, much like her prosthetics. Pressed against the softness of her palm, she could feel the distant memory of Hakim's penis; the tensile solidity, the sporadic and anticipant throbbing, the warmth of blood flowing beneath faintly bulging veins that moved whenever prodded, and the color, brown, that of a Shuriman, much like its length and girth.

Its simulation to a true penis was its primary function. It had a secondary, contained in a compartment at its base, where the powering crystal rested upon a medallion-shaped seal. Camille opened it with the soft pull of her hand, and after which, dipped her little finger inside the hollow interior of the device. When she pulled her finger out, it was wet with a viscous warm fluid that left a small, wispy trail.

There was still enough from when she had last pleased herself, and that was the first time she had discovered this device, and, alongside the quiet measures he had made to keep Camille fertile, the reason for Francesca. In her first use, this compartment been loaded with his seed, its vitality prolonged through the device's hextech technology. Now that vitality was gone, but the fluid was still there. It was enough.

She stroked the device, feeling it harden from stiff fat into solid muscle. The sight, touch, and response of it called out to the heat she felt all over her body, concentrated between her lips and thighs.  _Stains upon me…_  This was the way to clean those stains, her senses told her, and as she felt its solid form react organically to her touch, she believed them.

She set her back against a pillow, her neck against the headboard, with her legs spread open to receive her free hand. This time, her fingers would no longer tease, but serve to fulfill, and she felt the warmth of her arm course down between her breasts, to her groin, and into the hot and sticky envelope that shlucked against the slide of her middle finger. Her neck arced gently up. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her breaths were this impossible mixture of cold, hollow, and fiery, which were resolved when she brought the head of Hakim's 'device' in between her lips, and muffled the rasp of her breaths with the bloodwarm hardness that slid and throbbed against the round lathers of her tongue.

She worked with the phallus as if it had been covered in salty syrup that every side of her tongue challenged to gather. She kissed its meatus, fanned her tongue at its head, and, with its tip, outlined the underside of the edge of the penis head. Then, unsatisfied, she glided her wet lips over each side, tasting the meat with the soft yet slippery pressure of her tongue.

And the more she worked with this replica of Hakim's penis, her fingers that worked to insert themselves into her, gained matching energy. First, it had been her middle finger, sliding up and down between her two folds, daring to prod once or twice with each slide, until, she could permit a fingertip inside her, penetrating in and then slipping out the hot gelatinous spaces within, before capitulating herself completely for the entire finger. This caused her a sharp breath suppressed against the phallus, the head now worming between her lips and atop her tongue.

Not content, Camille joined a second finger with the first, stretching her walls further apart, deriving pleasure from the elastic pull of her spread-open legs and the exploring thrusts of her two fingers. Her forefinger wriggled up as if a beckoning inside her warm tightness, while her middle finger was completely straight, intent on setting itself deeper with each push.

The slaps, slips, and breaths that escaped her were partly hidden by the music, now midway into its progression, a gathering zephyr. Camille pushed the device, its midsection now clutch between her lips, while her tongue made circles upon it, driving the phallus into a round motion within her mouth. Hakim's Shuriman scent was right below her nose, and she was devouring it, convening it inside the cradle of her breaths, as if to combine it with her throat, and the more she tasted, the more she desired, until the phallus shined with her excessive spit.

Then, she felt it pulsate, gain a force of its own, and with the last vestige of self-control which she would have used to end this torment of lust entirely, she commanded herself to let the device out of her mouth before it could expel and expire for the night. It had gauged too much pleasure, and so, Camille pulled it out, a trail of part-spit and part-mucus falling like dew from its tip. The device could not deplete now, not when she had more intentions for it.

Camille slid her fingers out of herself, now wet with her own fluids. She felt the wanting squeeze of her insides relax and feel a momentary, longing emptiness, one that only Hakim had filled so generously in the past. At this pause, Camille became aware of the odors she had let out, of the mixing of perfume, fluid, and sweat, and, as if they were laced to her memories, she took a deep breath and tasted its vulgar concoction. Now, heat encased her body as much has it flooded her face, and gathered like storm in her sensitive slit. It twitched for pleasure. It pulsed for satisfaction. Its empty space panged in calls to be filled. Camille felt its need so overwhelmingly, that all thought ceased her, except for how to best satiate it.

And thus, this same need compelled her to crawl to one of her bedposts, bringing with her the device. There was a corner where the bedpost met the cushion, akin to the foot of a pole, and here, Camille placed the device by its base, in an inclined upright stand, and, gripping the bedpost with one hand and the phallus with the other, she raised her slit right above the devices tip.

With her left, she adjusted the phallus, such that its very tip was at the fringe of her two folds, and that a lowering motion from her hip would be all she needed to push it deeply and fulfillingly inside her. Camille closed her eyes, and, letting go of the device, held on to the bedpost, felt the tensile stretch of her buttocks as she spread her feet out the two sides of the bed corner, and with a breath held hard onto her chest, she released her weight upon the erect device, and rasped a reflexive moan as she felt its tip, head, and shaft dig its way upwards into the welcoming tight moisture of her slit.

Camille felt the stretch of her cream-white folds, the coldness of the bedpost against her palms, and her weight of her buttocks hotly distributed upon the cushion, concentrated around the device now lodged firmly inside her. So lubricated and hot were her insides, that when she bucked her hips to knead against the phallus and let writhe within her, there sounded warm liquid smacks and shlucks alongside the thud of the bed.

Camille felt her every wetness, every tightness, and every motion; from the jiggling weight of her breasts to the longing pushes of her hips. She moaned a privileged Piltovian lady's moan, first in sharp breaths, then in mouth-wide calls. She swayed and bucked her buttocks sporadically, sometimes in random directions, then wildly into spins, interrupted only when she would hop up and down, before spinning once more to lodge the phallus deeper and deeper at the pace she preferred, pushing her body so closely forward into the bedpost.

Each plunge was an explosion, a flood that satiated the hollowness, and a coursing starfire that sparked from her thighs, to her breast, and into her lips. Sweat gathered, dripped, and filmed Camille's skin as she embraced the bedpost and rocked her groin against its corner where the phallus stretched her with its girth, until, so wrapped into her heat, she let out her tongue and lay it upon the bedpost, with its lacquered wooden neck tight between the sweaty squeeze of her round breasts.

The music blared now into her ears, the rush of a cyclone now upon a coast, the gale that tears the ropes fastened to a dreadnought's sails, the winds that lift sea waves, and the surge that gathers the thunderclouds. She felt the rising notes, the rushing melody, and the peaking volume, and while the music progressed to its pinnacle, so did Camille feel the phallus's anticipating throbs that matched the rising tingles of biology within her. It was his design, a climax to match hers, and Camille whimpered with her speeding hops and bucks, the loose dangles of her tongue and breasts, until her moans broke, prolonged, expectant.

"Ah!" She exclaimed, and then squeezed her thighs inward, wrapping the bedpost. The throbs now carried a flowing warmth beneath, and with shivering moans, Camille pressed harder, grinding her groin against the device, until she felt it expel its first splurge of sticky warmth that spurted into her womb through the expelling throbs of the device, smothered against the thrusts of her buttocks as it flushed its abundant waves of hot liquid into her tight confines, the excess escaping in what space it could squeeze out as Camille continued to pump and grind.

Finally, it had poured its last shot inside her. Camille felt twitching in her hips, in the rise of her breaths, and in her fingers against the bedpost that had been clutched between her breasts. She closed her eyes, sensed the thick warmth that filled her, and how it drooled outward her slit through the sides of the shaft like congealed jelly. It streamed down to her buttocks, and dripped from there, trickling dew from what hairs she had below. Weight took her body as much as sweat did, and each breath was now cool and relieved, yet still deep that her breasts pushed outward alongside her chest.

The music had concluded. The chaos and speed of its finality now dissipated into silence.

Camille's skin shined with sweat, like polished porcelain. In this quiet, the humming of her heart returned, a conflicting backdrop to the shivering exhales of her chest. Hakim's device was still inside her, until, softening, it slipped out with the tired help of her fingers and the lubrication of the last excesses of semen exiting her.

The haze of her thoughts cleared and she waited, like a slave to be punished by her master, to her voice sobered with logic and sanity. It had nothing to say, not in the way she appeared to herself now, a used-up mannequin in dim blue night lights. A Piltovian lady, devoted to progress and order, at the eye of her hypocrisy. With this, the first thoughts came clear. It was a memory:

_A Pilite? More like a desperate sumpsnipe slut from the fucking Entrasol!_

Camille rolled over to her side and felt eternity and exhaustion roll with her. The first time she had pleasured herself after Hakim's departure was the reason for Francesca's existence, but now, with the pink wrapper working to ensure that no development would occur, she had no other justifiable reason for this time. Except perhaps, to remember the past, to feel the pleasures she had thought gone, and to save memory…

_What have I done to myself?_  Camille thought. The cold, noble, prudent, and proud augmented principal intelligencer, reduced to a naked, perspiring whore in the dirt of human after-climax.  _How am I any different form Sofia?_

When the phallus injected its seed, she felt the restless stains within her washed away, only to realize that these stains were corrosion, ones that could never be cleaned. Immediately, the regrets that had bound her returned, like a warden discovering her attempt to escape, and in its reprimand, scorned her hypocrisy, the surrender of her dignity, and the perpetuation of a secret she hoped would wither, and one only Viktor knew: Francesca and the first time she had used Hakim's device.

But no one else will know, she assured herself. In the aftermath confusion, she found comfort in that fact. She was alone, and the memory of all that had happened, was hidden by her walls and the silence of her words. Her moment of weakness, her withdrawal to instinct, and her greatest vulnerability, all those could be concealed as well as the child she kept away from the groping eyes of the world.

Thus, helped by her own assurance, she left her bed, and cleansed herself of the accumulated grime. For a moment, her memories of Hakim returned, of his promises, and of his touch, but like her instance of pleasure, it had all become an after-thought.

When she exited her bathroom, redressed in her night-robe, both the mundane and the serious matters returned to Camille's attention; from what she would order the servants to cook tomorrow morning, to her plans for Sofia, and the measures she, the other clans, and the Archminister agreed upon for the Trifarix's arrival.

Against the background of her blue night lights, she felt content to stare outside to the cityscape beyond and below, and all the colors that flashed, shined, and scintillated; the gold and neon brilliance of Piltovian islands in a sea of green and copper, Zaunite cliffs. Through both the clash and harmony of the colors, Camille could pinpoint the places that would require her presence tomorrow, as if it were all just a map for her intents.

But she could not focus. She was exhausted, not from physical exertion, but from the chaos of her thoughts, feelings, and memories. Her mind threatened to plunge her into deep rumination and unearth more unwanted memories in her prolonged lifetime. Even the thought of Francesca could not console her. With what she had done, an immense repulsion for herself broke her into a sigh. She did not physically need sleep, but now, she craved it to reset her state of mind.

Camille turned her back to the window, then said: "Program: vista, close. Program: night lights, close."

A mechanical whirring ensued and it accompanied the obscuring layer that now swallowed the window as the lady returned to rest on her bed, and watched as the colors of the window pane disappear like one's vision to the steady shut of both eyelids. Then, there was nothing but a faceless wall in the darkness, where Camille lie alone in the silence of her suite, with only the drowse of her breaths and the passive hum of her hextech heart to accompany her to dreamless slumber.

* * *

AN: This one took longer way longer than I expected because of all the politics and personal development which I had inputted here. Much of what I've written, I think, respects the lore and I hope I have done it to the taste of those who enjoy the new lore as much as I do. For those more interested in the smut, I hope I've done Camille's scene to your liking. I also hope I've portrayed Viktor well enough.

This chapter is a 'stage-setter', so to speak, hence why it's so long and details much about Camille (since these very details will be relevant to when Swain walks in). The whole secrecy about Francesca is my own idea, along with the conspiracy between Vitale and Volkage. I used "Francesca" since, according to a handy Google search, its meaning is "freedom", which I think is ironic for the situation she's in but fitting as Camille named her in a way that summarizes her memories with Hakim.

I played around with some more themes here, and one I really enjoyed writing was Camille as a weapon and as a lady. Both aspects of her have "stains" and "corrosion". In the first part, she is being cleaned in Viktor's home a weapon, and in the latter part, in her bathroom as a lady. When the part of her that is a weapon, which is her blade-legs, is removed, the part of her that is a lady is shown; from her motherly care to Francesca, to her memories of Hakim, and her sympathy to Sofia, a contrast to when she had her blade-legs on, which shows her concerned about her trade dealings and politics, concerns where weapons are frequently used.

I also made a little hidden parallel of Camille's cellovinna principles of mind, body, and soul, with the Trifarix's guile, strength, and vision, respectively. And I like the detail of "fading colors" which seems to mark the transition from innocence/happiness to reality in this arc's scenes. This had happened first to Sofia, with the fading shimmer that marked the end of her innocence , and then to Francesca, with the holo-chamber to show the fake world she's living, and finally, Camille with her window closing to reveal that she was utterly alone. There are other details I have hidden, which I think would be interesting to find, because, again, sYmBoLiC sMuT.

I believe I kept well to my intent that there'll be a lot of politics involved and that each lady's arc would be given proper attention to set the context for Swain's actions. I gave this fic a lot of thought while writing this chapter, and I have already laid the road for Camille's arc, and I'm thinking over the Three Sisters arc which I will likely precede the Shuriman arc. I am not sure where to put the most relevant characters to Swain, that is, Irelia and Le Blanc yet, but I do have this idea of placing them as the best for last.

Oh, as for the full list of Swain's 'endeavors', I have decided (in alphabetical order): Ashe, Camille, Fiora, Irelia, Karma, Le Blanc, Leona, Lissandra, Miss Fortune, Sejuani, Sivir. More characters may appear should the need arise, but the standard is  _political power._  Camille, for example, is not necessarily a queen like Ashe, but she has significant sway in Piltovian-Zaunite politics. Expect each arc (which may contain multiple characters, like the Three Sisters) to be around 20k-50k long.

Please feel free to criticize my style, my lore consistency, and other things which you find justifiably wrong about the story. As long as it is constructive and particular, it is invaluable to my improvement.

Thank you again and see you on the next one!


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